Ruby Pair
by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Summary: After a chance meeting, Zim and Tenn team up. These are their adventures. Eventual Zim/Tenn.
1. Meeting of Ruby Eyes

**A/N: Welcome, everybody, to the start of a little side project I've been planning for a while now. This probably won't be an epic series with a mapped-out plot like New Adventures, but rather an open-ended collection of connected oneshots (hell, on my AO3 account, I'm gonna just publish them individually). Also, I won't be working on this as regularly as New Adventures, just to let you all know that now.**

**Now, for a little context for how this idea came about. Some time ago, I was re-reading the long dormant (probably dead at this point) fic **_**Rise of the Smallest**_** by Fanatic Drone N, which as part of its premise involves a budding romance between Zim and Tenn, which I was interested in because that's not a ship you see often. Then I got curious as to how rare a ship it actually was, and found that there's only a handful of stories where the two of them even interact personally, and none of those actually pair them up. So, I got to thinking on it, and the idea for this series came to me. Oh, and people curious on the name? It's because of Zim and Tenn both having ruby-colored eyes; not very clever, I know, since so many Irkens do, but it's all I could think of.**

**And, just for another bit of FYI, the romance will be a slow-burn. I learned my lesson back in the Destiny Trilogy about not just rushing into writing romance; I need to build it up first.**

**Okay, that's enough rambling for now. On with the show!**

**Disclaimer: All canonical Invader Zim characters and concepts belong to the twisted imagination of Jhonen Vasquez. Everything else belongs to **_**my**_** twisted imagination.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**The Ruby Pair Series**

**Meeting of Ruby Eyes**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Zim's Voot Cruiser zoomed through the void of space. In the cockpit, Zim leaned back in his chair, allowing the autopilot to handle the ship's course, while he drifted in his thoughts, oblivious to everything around him. Not even GIR sitting next to him, singing nonsensically (not the Doom Song though, thank Irk), nor Minimoose floating randomly around the enclosed space, was enough to snap him out of where his mind was wandering.

It had been some time since the Tallest had revealed to him that his mission to Earth was fake, just a means of getting rid of him. And while he'd been initially shocked and dismayed at the news, he'd since brushed it off — after all, he was Zim. Conquest and destruction ran through his mighty Irken veins! If he wasn't officially sanctioned to take over Earth, fine, he'd just do it by himself. That would prove his worth to the Tallest, he was sure of it.

"_Besides, what's my alternative, rebel against the Empire?_" Zim mentally snorted, "_Or maybe I could befriend the Dib-Monkey and live like a normal human pig-smelly. Or maybe just mope around all day and whine about what went wrong with my life, like one of those… emus? Elmos? Eskimos? Whatever that human word is._"

Realizing he was getting off track, Zim shook his head and turned back to the topic at hand. The point was, he was determined to keep on doing what he'd been doing, but he now had the problem of having many of his usual supply lines cut off. That meant that if he was going to keep himself at full operating capacity, he had to make some compromises he'd otherwise be uncomfortable with. Hence this particular trip, which he wouldn't have made under normal circumstances.

"Location proximity alert," the console suddenly announced, snapping Zim out of his thoughts.

"Speak of the Shloobian Jelly Beast," he muttered, deactivating the autopilot as he took in the sight of his destination — Cyberflox, the galaxy's biggest and most dangerous black market planet. It looked just like Zim remembered from his last trip, only with the orbital billboards that once advertised Fitzoo-Menga as the planet's new owner now instead read "Under _New_ New Management".

Frankly, Zim hadn't wanted to come back to anywhere that reminded him of the whole Virooz situation. But with his access to Callnowia officially cut off, he needed someplace to restock his weapons and other supplies. And while there were other planets he could go to, this was the one that could meet his demands in both the bulk that he required and at a fast enough pace that he was comfortable with. So, he'd just have to swallow his discomfort and deal with it.

Entering the atmosphere, Zim flew towards the Empty-Warehouse-For-Rent district of the planet, an area he hadn't been aware of last time. That probably would have been more helpful as a hideout than finding one with an owner he could overpower and lock in a box… huh, actually, come to think of it, had he ever let that guy out? Meh, it didn't matter.

Landing next to a directory station, Zim quickly went through the tedious forms needed to rent a warehouse, then took the Voot over to it and parked inside. Activating the ship's security systems, he got out of the ship and then turned to face his robots as they likewise disembarked, Minimoose floating out and GIR flopping face first onto the floor.

"Alright, listen up," Zim announced, "I'm going to go meet with the vendors, and have them send everything here, where you'll pack it into the ship. That should limit the amount of time we need to spend here; Zim doesn't want to be here any longer than is necessary. Understood?"

"Yes, my master!" GIR saluted, eyes red, as Minimoose squeaked in affirmation. GIR's eyes then changed back to blue, as he exclaimed, "You's gonna get me some taquitos?"

"No, GIR," Zim replied with a long-suffering sigh, "I told you already, there are no taquitos here! I'm here for weapons, fuel, actual Irken food…"

"Whaaaa!" GIR cried, falling onto the ground and repeatedly slamming his fists on it. Zim's eye twitched at the tantrum, and after a few minutes he threw his arms up in defeat.

"Fine! If we have time afterwards, we'll stop off someplace and get you some! Just shut up!"

"Okay!" GIR said, jumping back to his feet and then skipping off cheerfully. Zim sighed again as he watched him run off, then turned to Minimoose.

"Keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't break anything that's delivered," he ordered.

"Nyah!" Minimoose squeaked another acknowledgement, before floating after GIR.

Shaking off his annoyance, Zim then turned on his heel and marched out of the warehouse.

XXXXXXX

Some time later, Zim was at a Bombs, Firearms, & Sofas Emporium, filling out the last of the paperwork for his purchase of weapons (and a comfy new couch; his old one was filthy). Watching the employees cart up his purchases and carry them off towards the warehouse, Zim nodded at a job well done, when the digestive portion of his squeedlyspooch rumbled. Frowning, Zim checked the time on his watch.

"Hmph, that did take a bit longer than I expected," he muttered, "And it'll be longer still for them to pack everything onto the ship. I suppose I have time to stop to get something to eat. Is that blood-smoothie place still around here somewhere?"

Zim then spent the next few minutes looking for someplace to eat, eventually finding a somewhat seedy-looking hole in the wall bar. Of course, since this was Cyberflox, being only _somewhat_ seedy-looking meant it was probably the safest option. So, that in mind, Zim marched in, finding himself in a dark, dirty room, aliens of many species seated at a number of dingy tables or at the bar. Standing behind that bar was a large purple alien with fours arms and six eyes, cleaning a number of glasses with rags, something he didn't pause in even as he noticed Zim walking up to the bar.

"Whaddya want?" the bartender asked gruffly.

"Zim demands nachos, and Vortian firewhiskey," Zim replied, not letting the much larger alien intimidate him.

"Fine. Go on and sit down, we'll bring it to ya," the bartender said, tapping the order onto a console and waving Zim off. The Irken sniffed in annoyance at being dismissed so easily, but stomped over to the nearest table and sat down.

As he waited for his order to arrive, Zim tapped his fingers against the table's surface, once again letting his thoughts drift. And despite himself, that led him back to thinking once again about his current status.

"_It's a total injustice,_" he mused darkly, "_So what if I caused a bunch of blackouts, or blew up all those loser Invaders, or accidentally killed Miyuki and Spork, or that whole thing with the Florpus, or… whatever. The point is, I am Zim! I am the greatest Irken who ever lived! That should excuse any little mistakes I've made over the years. Bah, well, I'll show them! I'll conquer Earth on my own, without the Armada's aid. And then the Tallest will see they were wrong about me, and will get down on their knees to apologize for casting me aside! And then-_"

"Zim?" a voice suddenly spoke up to the side, snapping him out of his contemplation. Blinking, he turned to face its source, and was surprised to see a female Irken standing next to the table, holding a tray containing his order. She was a little taller than him, with eyes the same shade of ruby red as his own, and wearing an Elite's uniform with a waitress apron and skirt over it.

More to the point, and to Zim's further surprise, he realized he recognized her.

"Tenn?" he exclaimed, staring in shock, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I work here," she replied, her own surprise at seeing him evident.

"You're invading Cyberflox? I thought you were assigned to Meekrob?" Zim asked, squinting an eye in confusion.

"No, I mean I _work_ here," Tenn said, frowning as she shifted from surprise to annoyance, gesturing around the bar, specifically to other waitresses wearing the same outfit as hers, to hammer in her point.

"You're using this place to get monies to fuel your conquest of Meekrob?"

"What?" Tenn blinked at Zim's comment, "Did you not hear what I just said? I work here. As in, I'm an employee of this bar."

"…You conquered Meekrob when no one was looking and now you're getting started on this planet for fun?"

"No! Arrgh!" Tenn growled, pinching the space between her eyes for a moment before turning to look at the bartender, "Marluck! I'm taking my break."

"Fine," the bartender replied, not even bothering to look up from the glasses he was still cleaning, though he did toss one in her direction. She caught it with one hand, even as the other slammed the tray containing Zim's order onto his table. Then she popped open the bottle of firewhiskey and poured herself a shot, before filling Zim's glass as well and sliding it over to him.

Zim watched as Tenn downed her shot and poured herself another one, before deciding to drink his own. Sipping it slowly, he gave Tenn an appraising look. They hadn't been particularly close back in the Academy, as Skoodge had been the only one Zim had deemed worthy of being his friend (that was his story, and he was sticking to it), but she had been Skoodge's friend, so they had at least interacted a bit more frequently than mere classmates. Therefore, he liked to think he knew her well enough to read her, and right now he was seeing signs of serious stress and frustration.

Not that he cared, of course. He was just curious as to how she got to be here, of all places.

"So, what is the deal with all this, really?" Zim asked, popping a nacho in his mouth, "How'd you get from Meekrob to here?"

"What happened is that due to some shipping mixup, I got a delivery of a bunch of malfunctioning SIR Units," Tenn said, shivering at the memory, "You ever see what kind of damage an insane SIR Unit can do?"

"Every day," Zim replied with a shrug, "I just find something to distract him with, and that usually calms him down."

"Well, I didn't exactly have time to work that out as an option," Tenn commented dryly, as she helped herself to some of Zim's nachos, "Besides which, it wasn't just one of the damn things, it was over a dozen. All of them running around, blowing things up, setting stuff on fire, pulling out chainsaws, and… well, you get the point. My base didn't last an hour after that mess started up."

"Okay, but that still doesn't explain how you became a waitress on Cyberflox," Zim said.

"I'm getting to that," Tenn snapped, taking another drink, "Anyway, my base and all my resources were destroyed, I was cut off from the Armada, and my presence on the planet was exposed to the Meekrob. So, I had to go into hiding, living in caves and surviving off what non-toxic wildlife I could hunt-"

"Zim didn't ask for your whole life story. Get to the point," Zim cut in, earning a glare from Tenn.

"_Anyway,_ I finally managed to scrape together a barely-functional ship and managed to get off of Meekrob and back to Irken space," she continued, "I wasn't exactly expecting a warm welcome, given that I'd failed my mission, but I thought that I'd at worst be disciplined, maybe demoted to regular soldier status. Instead, the Tallest and the Control Brains declared that I was now a stain on the Empire's honor, so they outright banished me! And they didn't even give me a chance to gather supplies before making me leave! This was the only planet I could reach before my fuel ran out, and this bar was the first place I could find that would hire me without any experience. So now I'm stuck working this stupid job, just to scrape together enough monies to survive, all because I'm being punished for something that wasn't even my fault!"

By this point, Tenn was fully ranting, and as she finished, she smacked a fist onto the tabletop for emphasis, before grabbing the bottle and chugging directly from it. Zim, meanwhile, was staring in shock at her intensity, but only for a moment before shrugging it off.

"Yeah, the Tallest can be pretty ungrateful jerks when they wanna be," he said, calmly sipping his own drink as Tenn stared at him like he'd just grown a second head.

"Since when do _you_ badmouth the Tallest?" she asked, sounding dumbfounded.

"Since I found out my so-called 'mission' was just an excuse to get rid of me," Zim replied, scowling, "Well, I bet they'll feel real stupid when I end up conquering Earth anyway."

"Wait, so you're still sticking to your mission even though you know it's fake?" Tenn asked, cocking her head to one side, "I mean, I guess that's not as weird as somehow _quitting_ your banishment, but still…"

"Well what else is Zim supposed to do? I'm not giving up, unlike some people," he responded haughtily, smirking at the offended look that crossed her face at that.

"I did not give up!" she snapped, "Did you not hear the part where the Tallest kicked me out of the Empire?"

"Yes, but that only happened because you ran away from Meekrob, instead of sticking it out and trying to overcome that setback you suffered," Zim scoffed.

"Setback? That was not a setback, it was a disaster!" Tenn said, "And it's not like it was because of some mistake on my part, it was those stupid SIRs! If I had gotten the Megadoomer the Tallest meant to send me instead of those things, I'd probably be leading an Organic Sweep of Meekrob right now!"

"Eh, I doubt it, that thing's overrated," Zim replied, as he finished off the nachos.

"How would you know?" Tenn asked with a scowl.

"Oh, I got one of them delivered to me once. Didn't work out so well," Zim explained with a shrug.

"…When was this?" Tenn asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I dunno, a year ago maybe? Why?" Zim said, confused as a look of shock appeared on Tenn's face, which quickly twisted into rage.

"You _vrik na tishanti!_ That was _my_ Megadoomer!" she yelled, grabbing the firewhiskey bottle and throwing it at him.

Yelping, Zim ducked, and the bottle shot over him, flying through the air until it smashed into the back of the head of a large, bulky alien sitting at another table. The alien jerked forward as the bottle shattered against his head, blinking in surprise at what had just happened. Scowling, he turned and, seeing a random other patron walking by, assumed he was responsible. As such, he grabbed the other alien without warning and tossed him, sending him flying to crash into another table, earning yells of irritation and anger from the customers sitting there.

Before long, a full bar brawl had broken out, everyone picking a fight with whoever was standing closest to them, for no other reason than it was what everyone else was doing. The only exceptions were Marluck the bartender, who had ducked underneath the bar with only an exasperated sigh, and Zim, who was trying to seek cover under his table… "trying" being the appropriate word, as Tenn had followed him, and was now trying to strangle him.

"Will you stop that?!" Zim yelled, grabbing at Tenn's wrists to keep her hands off his neck and pressing his feet against her chest to try and push her back.

"I'm going to kill you!" she screamed, "If you hadn't taken that Megadoomer, I would have gotten it, and then I'd have conquered Meekrob, and I wouldn't be in this dump!"

"I didn't _take_ it, it was delivered to me!" Zim shot back, "Would you just calm down and let Zim explain?!"

"Like I wanna hear anything out of your mouth, you-HEY!"

Tenn was cut off as a pair of large hands knocked aside the table and grabbed her and Zim by the collars, hefting them into the air. Looking around, the Irkens saw that they were being held by a tall purple lizard-looking alien in blue body armor, one of several now in the bar, breaking up the fights and detaining the belligerent customers.

"Alright, that's enough," a lizard in a particularly snazzy set of armor announced, "In accordance with new planetary management regulations, fights anywhere outside of designated areas are strictly prohibited. You will all now be detained until such time that the managerial magistrate decides what to do with you."

"This is injustice!" Zim shouted, squirming in the officer's grasp, "Zim has done nothing! Release us at once, or taste the fury of my mighty fist!"

"Hey sarge, these two are resisting arrest," the lizard holding the Irkens commented to the one in charge.

"What?! I didn't say anything!" Tenn protested.

"Knock 'em both out and take them to holding," the sergeant ordered. And before either Irken could react, the lizard slammed their heads together. As they lost consciousness, the lizard then carried them out of the bar, following the line of aliens being led out in cuffs by his fellow officers.

XXXXXXX

Zim groaned as he slowly regained consciousness. Grabbing his sore head with one hand, he pushed himself up with the other, trying to remember what had happened to him. Blinking his eyes to clear the spots from his vision, he looked around and found that he was lying on a metal bench running along one wall of a small room. There were energy bars blocking the only doorway, and Tenn was lying on another bench on the other side of the room…

"Oh, yeah. Bar fight and arrest by Cyberflox security," he muttered as the memory came back to him. Shaking off the remaining soreness in his head, he frowned at Tenn's unconscious form; after considering it for a moment, he got up from his bench, crossed the small space to reach her, and started shaking her.

"Hey, wake up," he said. When nothing happened, he scowled and started shaking her harder, "Hey, Zim commands you to wake up! Right no-!"

_SMACK!_

Zim was caught off guard as Tenn's fist suddenly shot up and hit him in the chin so hard that he was sent flying back across the room to bounce off his bench and flop onto the floor. Tenn, meanwhile, blinked in confusion as she finished fully regaining consciousness, having lashed out with that punch entirely on instinct. However, as she took in her location, and saw Zim sprawled on the floor, that confusion faded into annoyance and anger.

"Oh, right. You," she grumbled. For a minute, she looked like she was about to attack him again, before sighing in defeat and slumping, resting her head on one hand, "You know I'm probably going to get fired over this, right? Thanks a lot."

"What did Zim do?" Zim snapped as he crawled back onto his bench, "You're the one who started that stupid fight when you attacked me!"

"Okay, yeah, that wasn't such a bright idea," she admitted, before scowling at him, "But considering I just found out that you had the Megadoomer that should have been mine this whole time-"

"Would you let Zim explain that already?" Zim interrupted, scowling back at her with equal intensity. She huffed, but nodded at him to do so.

"Now then, as Zim was trying to say before, I did not _take_ your Megadoomer, it was delivered to me," he stated, "In hindsight, I was probably the one meant to get those defective SIRs, as a sick joke by the Tallest. Instead, somehow I got that stupid mech, which quite frankly was a total joke! It didn't come with a power source, so I had to keep it plugged in all the time, and even that wasn't enough to keep it charged when I tried to use its weapons. And oh yeah, that cloaking device that's supposed to be so awesome? Turns out it only makes the _mech_ invisible, not the _pilot_."

"Wait, so you were still completely visible even though it wasn't?" Tenn asked, arching her antennae in surprise, "That's just idiotic."

"Yes it is. Those stupid Vortians either completely messed up the design or decided to sabotage production in the most ridiculous way possible," Zim said, muttering that last part before turning back to Tenn, "Anyway, in summary, Zim had nothing to do with you not getting that thing, and even if you'd gotten it, it wouldn't have done you any good. So don't blame me for your life getting screwed up by something that wasn't my fault!"

"…Fine, sorry," Tenn mumbled out after a moment, before leaning back with another sigh, "I suppose it doesn't matter, anyway. It still happened regardless of whose fault it was, I still ended up on this steaming cesspool of a planet, and now I'm more than likely out of a job, which means I'll have to scrape and beg for another one, which will probably be worse than the last one. I am truly at rock bottom."

"Yes, yes, your life in quite pathetic at the moment," Zim commented, earning a glare from her, "But are you just going to sit back and take it? Or are you going to do something to improve your situation, like I am?"

Tenn stared at him in surprise, before snorting and looking away.

"I don't know why you think we're getting out of here anytime soon," she said, "The local law enforcement might technically be employed by the consortium that bought out the planet after Fitzoo-Menga disappeared, but they're all in the pocket of the local mobs. And that means that unless you're a member of any of those gangs, you rot in jail until they decide they're sick of looking at you."

"Then it's a good thing Zim isn't leaving it up to them," he replied, as a communicator extended out of his PAK, "GIR, come in! Your master requires your aid!"

"_Hiya, Mister Wizard! Are we going to Munchkin land?_" GIR responded, a hologram of his head projecting from the device.

"What?" Zim asked, blinking for a moment before deciding to ignore it, "Never mind, I don't care. I've been taken prisoner by the local law drones, and I need you to come break me out!"

"_Ooh, okie-dokie! Imma gonna dig a hole through the wall with a spoon!_"

"No, GIR, I don't have time for that kind of nonsense. Just lock onto my PAK transponder, come to my location, and blast me free," Zim commanded, "Do you understand me?"

"_Yes, my master!_" GIR responded, eyes flashing red as he saluted, before the communication switched off.

"There, now we just have to wait for him to come get us," Zim said as the communicator retracted, before arching an antenna as he noticed the disconcerted look on Tenn's face.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked.

"A malfunctioning SIR Unit. That's your plan," she said flatly, "That's what got me into this mess in the first place!"

"Hey! I'll have you know that while GIR may be a piece of junk, he's perfectly reliable at least 75 percent of the time!" Zim stated in defense of his robot.

"Oh, I feel so much better now," Tenn huffed, lying down on her bench and trying to get comfortable.

"Hmph," Zim snorted, not amused by her reaction. However, he chose to ignore her for now, and instead got comfortable himself, leaning back against the wall.

For a few minutes, there was no sound in the cell except for that of Zim absently tapping his fingers against the bench. Eventually, though, he got bored with that, and looked around for something to do. Obviously, there was nothing in the cramped space that could provide entertainment, but before he could get too frustrated, a memory sparked, and he got an idea.

"I spy something reddish-brown," he said, Tenn blinking at the sudden comment.

"What?"

"It's a human game I picked up one of the other times I was in a jail cell," Zim explained with a shrug.

"How many times has that happened?" Tenn asked, narrowing an eye at him.

"Not the point! The point is, you play by vaguely describing something you see, and the person you're playing with has to guess it," Zim said.

"That's stupid," Tenn said, "I have better things to do than play some ridiculous game with you."

"Like what?" Zim asked, genuinely curious.

"…"

"…"

"…Is it that bit of rust on the edge of your bench?" she asked after a moment.

"Nope," Zim replied with a smug smirk.

"That weird stain on the floor?"

"Nuh-uh."

"That dried blood splatter on the ceiling?"

"Honestly didn't notice that until just now, so no."

"Ugh, this is stupid, I give up!" Tenn groaned, leaning back against the wall.

"Aha! Victory for Zim!" Zim crowed, throwing up his arms in celebration, "And for the record, I was talking about the bit of rust on the edge of _your_ bench."

Tenn growled in disbelief and annoyance, but before she could say or do anything, there was a sound of footsteps approaching. Hearing this, both Irkens sat up straight, just as several of the lizard security guards arrived outside the cell, including the sergeant who had arrested them.

"Good news, Irkens, your bail's been paid," the sergeant announced, as the energy bars disappeared from the doorway.

"What? By who?" Tenn asked, staring at them suspiciously.

"Who cares? Zim is outta here!" Zim said, trying to exit the cell, only for one of the guards to grab him by the collar before he could brush past them.

"Not so fast," the sergeant said, "Your bailer had pretty strict instructions regarding what to do with you. Namely, you're to be taken to them immediately upon release."

"Zim has no desire to go anywhere except off this planet," Zim growled, struggling in the guard's grip, "Release me at once!"

"Nope. Grab the other one," the sergeant ordered, pulling a pair of black bags out from behind his back.

"Wait a minute-" Tenn started to say, only to be grabbed by one of the lizards. She and Zim then had the bags shoved over their heads, and their hands were cuffed behind their backs. They were then carried out of the building and tossed into the back of a hovercraft, which started moving. As it did, several guards also in the craft took out batons and started smacking Zim with them.

"AH! Why is there pain?!" Zim yelled, as he twitched under the blows.

"Orders from the people we're taking you to," one of the guards replied casually, as he continued to hit Zim, "They offered a nice bonus to rough you up first."

"Should we also whack the other one a few times?" another guard asked, gesturing to Tenn.

"Nah, they didn't say anything about her, other than to bring her," the first guard said, still hitting Zim.

"Gah! I will turn you inside out!" Zim snarled, only to be ignored by the guards, who continued to hit him.

This continued for several minutes, before the hovercraft came to a stop and the guards finally let up the beating. They then grabbed the Irkens and tossed them out of the hovercraft to land with thuds on the sidewalk.

"Took you long enough," a voice said; still hooded as they were, Zim and Tenn couldn't tell who it belonged to.

"Whatever, we're here aren't we?" one of the guards countered, "You got our money?"

"Sure. Nice doing business with you," the other voice replied. There was the sound of bags, presumably containing money, being handed over to the guards, and then the Irkens were again picked up and carried off. If Zim weren't so woozy from the beating, he would have started issuing demands, but as it was stayed quiet; Tenn, for her part, kept her mouth shut until she thought she was in a position to talk her way out of this.

After several more minutes, they reached wherever it was they were going, and the Irkens were dumped onto what felt like a couple of chairs. Then the hoods were pulled off, and the pair winced at the sudden return of light. Still handcuffed, they were only able to sit there, squirming and looking around to take in their surroundings. They were sitting in the middle of a large circular room, lined with windows. And filling that room were a number of large amoeba-like aliens, including one wearing a white suit jacket who was seated on a dais and looking down at them.

"Well, well, I bet you didn't think we'd ever cross paths again, did you little Irken?" the chief amoeba asked, sneering at Zim, while his guards seemed more interested in several plates of crepes that were lying about.

"…Who are you?" Zim asked, blinking in apparently genuine confusion, which caught the amoeba off guard.

"Wha-? I'm Gabo Amoebo, chief crime boss of Cyberflox!" the mob boss proclaimed in outrage, "We met last time you were on this planet!"

"…" Zim merely stared, not showing any reaction.

"You were disguised as a janitor and looking for Virooz," Gabo went on, growing increasingly frustrated, "You kept causing everyone to shoot each other, we all assumed you were muscling in on our territory, so we tried to ambush you in that alley, and then you got sucked up into Fitzoo-Menga's ship before we could!"

"Zim remembers all that, but I don't recall you being there," Zim replied with a shrug. While Gabo sputtered in disbelief, Tenn rolled her eyes and decided to finally speak up.

"Okay, look, from the sound of it, you have a grudge against Zim for whatever damages his stupidity did to your people last time, and you want to take it out on him," she said, "So why am _I_ here?"

"Well, we can't leave a loose end hanging around who might come looking for him when we're done with him," Gabo explained, "So I'm afraid you're going to have to share your little friend's fate."

"He's not my friend! I don't even like him!" Tenn protested.

"Regardless, you're a witness now, so we're going to have to get rid of you," Gabo said, before gesturing to his men, "Boys, I'm not in the mood for gloating anymore. Just go take these two and fit 'em with some concrete shoes."

"We sell shoes now?" one of the amoebas asked obliviously, earning himself a smack upside the head.

"No, you idiot! That's code for putting their feet in concrete and tossing them in the nearest pool to drown!" Gabo growled in annoyance, "You know what? Forget it — just take them out back and shoot them until they're vaporized!"

"Do not touch Zim, or I'll make you all suffer!" Zim yelled in panic as the amoebas started walking towards them. Tenn, however, took a more pragmatic approach — as an amoeba came up behind her chair, she kicked off from it, sending it flying back into the amoeba and knocking him over. At the same time, her PAK legs deployed, one of them slicing down and through her cuffs, freeing her hands by the time she hit the ground in a crouch.

Everyone stared at this display, including Zim. Noting that part, Tenn rolled her eyes.

"Zim, you know you can do that too, right?" she sighed.

"Er, right, of course Zim knew that! I just wanted to see if _you _knew that!" Zim said quickly. Then, before anyone could react, he extended his own PAK legs, and started randomly firing plasma blasts from three of them while the fourth one cut his hands free. The amoebas all ducked for cover, as did Tenn when several of Zim's shots almost hit her.

"Learn to aim, you moron!" she snapped.

"Don't tell Zim how to shoot things! I'm an expert at it!" he snapped back, though he did cease fire to check the damage… which, aside from some holes in the floor and ceiling, wasn't much. The amoebas, meanwhile, were all completely unharmed, and were now glaring at the Irkens.

"Yeah, you're a real expert, I can tell," Tenn said dryly.

"Silence!"

"Alright, that's enough from both of you!" Gabo yelled, drawing a blaster as his men did likewise, "Forget taking you out back, I'm just gonna blast you here and clean up the mess later! Open fir-!"

_SMASH!_

To everyone's surprise, one of the windows was smashed open as something slammed into it, then hit the floor and rolled across it to come to a stop at Zim's feet.

"Hi!" GIR greeted happily, looking up at his master.

"GIR! What took you so long?" Zim demanded.

"I stopped to play with the turkey people!" GIR responded as he jumped to his feet.

"What?" Zim asked, he and everyone else blinking at the comment, before shaking it off, "Never mind, we're leaving."

"Did you miss the part where you're my prisoners and about to be rubbed out?" Gabo asked, growling in annoyance.

"No, Zim remembers that, but you're going to let us go," Zim replied smugly.

"Oh yeah? And why's that?"

"Because," Zim said, suddenly grabbing GIR, flipping his head open, and pulling something out, "I'm holding a thermal detonator!"

The amoebas all gasped and stepped back in fear, except for Gabo himself, who merely raised an eyebrow as he actually looked at what Zim was holding.

"…That's a can of tomato soup," he commented. Zim blinked at that, and looking to his hand saw that he was indeed holding a can instead of a bomb.

"Eh? GIR! What did you do with all those emergency explosives I packed you with?" Zim demanded.

"I traded 'em to the turkey people for the soup!" GIR replied.

"_What_ turkey people do you keep mentioning?" Zim asked, frowning in frustration.

As if on cue, there was an explosion across the street. Everyone turned to look out the window, and saw that a building had been blown apart. Numerous aliens were running out of the wreckage on fire, most of which looked like humanoid turkeys.

"Hey, I think that little robot just blew up Phil's Soup 'N Lasers," one of the amoebas commented casually.

"Huh, someone make a note to buy out that property," Gabo said, turning back to the Irkens, "Now then, where were-"

Once again, Gabo was interrupted. This time, it was because Tenn grabbed the soup can out of Zim's hand and threw it through the air at him. It smacked into Gabo's face hard enough that it would have broken bones if he had any; as it was, his gelatinous form gave way, leaving the can sticking out of his now featureless face. As the other amoebas stared in shock, Tenn then turned and tackled Zim, the pair of them going right out another window and crashing into a dumpster on the street below.

"Gah, what did you do that for?" Zim groaned, as they pulled themselves out of the garbage.

"I just saved us from the mess you got us into. You're welcome," Tenn replied tersely.

"Let's do it again!" GIR cheered, as he attempted to swim through the garbage. Tenn shuddered at his actions, but shook off her discomfort to focus on the more pressing issue at the moment.

"Come on, we need to get out of her," she said, scrambling out of the dumpster and onto the pavement.

"Bah, those stupid amoebas are no threat," Zim scoffed as he hopped out of the dumpster, dragging GIR with him, "Now that we've escaped their lair, they'll just give up."

_ZAP_

_ZAP_

_ZAP_

"Ah!" Zim yelped, just barely dodging as several lasers hit the dumpster, fired by the amoebas firing out of the broken window.

"After them! Don't let them get away!" Gabo ordered.

"Run!" Tenn shouted, grabbing Zim's arm and bolting down the street, as several amoebas emerged out of a nearby door.

"Zim can run on his own!" Zim snapped, yanking his hand free, but otherwise following her. GIR, meanwhile, was keeping pace besides them, but from the look on his face only because he thought what was happening was fun.

The Irkens sped down the street, shoving aside anyone who in their way, while the amoebas chased after them, firing off their blasters in a constant barrage.

"Quick, in here!" Tenn said, darting through a door. Annoyed at her still giving him orders, but having no time to protest it, Zim dashed through the door after her, kicking it shut behind him. Looking around, he saw that they were now in a club of some kind, disco balls lighting the room, while aliens sat at tables surrounding the central dance floor, where a crowd of many more patrons were dancing to loud music.

"Oooh, party!" GIR said happily, running in to join the crowd.

"GIR, get back here!" Zim snapped, only for Tenn to push him towards the dance floor as well.

"Follow him, we can lose them in the crowd!" she shouted to be heard over the music.

"Stop telling Zim what to do!" Zim snarled. He was just about to stay where he was, just to spite her, when he heard the amoebas start banging on the door, trying to kick it down. Growling, he followed after GIR, slipping between the legs of the taller aliens to try and hide beneath their bulks.

A few seconds later, the door was knocked off its hinges, and the amoebas swarmed into the club. Gabo emerged from amongst his underlings, and after taking a look at the crowd, fired a shot into the air, causing the music to instantly stop and gaining everyone's attention.

"Alright, listen up!" he announced, "I'm looking for a couple of people who just ran in here. My men have surrounded this building, so nobody try to make a run for it or try to help the people I'm here for, and everyone I'm not interested in gets to live."

"Now what?" Zim hissed to Tenn, from where the pair were huddled behind a particularly large yeti-like alien, while an oblivious GIR continued to dance next to them.

"Oh, _now_ you want me to tell you what to do?" Tenn hissed back.

"Fine, Zim will just come up with something himself if you can't," Zim said, Tenn rolling her eyes in response. Zim didn't notice, however, as his mind was racing, trying to figure out a way out of this situation. There had to be one — he was not going to go out like this, killed by some nobody amoeba with a grudge for something that wasn't even his fault. Seriously, how was Zim to blame because everyone on this planet was so trigger happy about…

Oh, wait. That could work.

"So here's what's happening," Gabo said, "We're looking for-"

"VIROOZ!" Zim suddenly yelled, Tenn wincing at the unexpected volume. And before she could even try to be angry at him for blowing their location, the crowd reacted to the shout.

"Virooz?!"

"Did someone say Virooz?!"

"Why's he looking for Virooz?!"

"I thought Virooz was gone?!"

Everyone started screaming about Virooz, and whipping out weapons to aim at each other. The bartenders pulled out blaster rifles from beneath the bar, everyone on the dance floor but the Irkens pulled out blasters, the patrons flipped their tables to better stand up and aim at each other, and the disco balls and other lights in the ceiling retracted and were replaced with blaster turrets.

"Whoa, whoa, everyone calm down!" Gabo said, wide-eyed at how many weapons were now pointed at him and his men (even if most were aimed at each other), "I didn't say anything about Virooz-"

"He said it again!" someone shouted, opening fire on the amoebas. As if this were the cue, everyone else started shooting as well. In the midst of all this chaos, Zim and Tenn dove behind the bar, having plenty of room to hide as the bartenders were vaporized in the crossfire, and hunkered down.

Several minutes later, the shooting stopped. Deciding to take the risk of checking to see what had happened, the Irkens peeked out from behind the bar, and saw that everyone had either been disintegrated or was lying on the floor in a charred heap. Except, that is, for GIR (who was _still_ dancing) and the amoebas, who were scorched and literally blasted full of holes, but despite that didn't looked actually hurt.

"Wow, if I had organs, this would probably be extremely painful," Gabo commented, poking at one of the large holes in his chest before shrugging and turning to face the Irkens again, "Now then, where were we?"

"Great. You managed to eliminate everyone _except_ the people chasing us," Tenn said dryly, "Any other bright ideas?"

"Er…" was all Zim said, as he froze up in panic.

"Okay, that's enough of this nonsense," Gabo said, as he and his men took aim, "This ends right no-"

_BOOM_

"Now what?!" Gabo screamed, as one of the walls suddenly exploded. As the resulting dust cloud cleared, everyone turned to face it, and were surprised to see a large number of knocked out amoebas piled on the street outside. And even more so as their assailant emerged out of the cloud.

"Nyah!" Minimoose squeaked, floating into the room.

"Minimoose? Where have you been?" Zim asked, as everyone else stared at the purple moose.

"Nyah!"

"I _know_ I told you to keep an eye on GIR and the Voot, but when I told him to come save me it was implied I meant you too!"

"Nyah!"

"Well you should have come _before_ you heard the explosions and shooting!"

"Nyah!"

"Zim does _not_ need to learn to be more specific, you little-!" Zim snarled, before shaking his head angrily, "Urgh, never mind! Just deal with these stupid gangster amoeba people!"

"Oh please," Gabo said, as he and his men snapped out of their surprised daze, "I don't know what happened to all those idiots outside, but there's no way that stupid little thing is supposed to be a threat to us."

"Nyah!"

"Ooh, now you made Moose mad," GIR commented, having stopped dancing to watch, while Zim smirked at the insulted anger he could hear in his minion's squeaking. Minimoose floated over to hover in front of the amoebas, and before they could react, he started glowing with energy, which spread to the piles of rubble from the destroyed wall. That debris lifted into the air and compressed, quickly forming into large boulders which hung in the air directly above the amoebas.

Before the gangsters had a chance to do more than widen their eyes in alarm, Minimoose slammed the boulders down on them. He then pulled them back up and brought them down again, repeating this process several more times, until all the amoebas had been reduced to groaning puddles of goo. Except for Gabo, who stared slack-jawed at the mess that used to be his men.

"Well, er," he stuttered, holding up his hands defensively, "Maybe this whole thing's just been a big mistake. What do you say we just talk this out over a meal? You guys like crepes? I'll-AH!"

Gabo's pleading was cut off with a cry as Tenn suddenly dashed forward and sliced through one of his wrists with one of her PAK legs, sending that hand and the blaster it was holding clattering to the floor. And before he could even process what had happened to him, Zim ran towards him as well and swooped down with his PAK legs, cutting Gabo in half at the waist, sending his upper half also tumbling down to the floor. But before it could hit, Tenn spun around, and her PAK legs cut Gabo's head off.

Gabo blinked dumbly as his head bounced on the floor, looking around at his dismembered body and up at the Irkens, who were glaring down at him.

"Um, no hard feelings?" he said with a forced grin. In response, Zim kicked him, sending the disembodied head flying through the hole in the wall to disappear somewhere across the street.

"Goal!" GIR cheered, throwing his hands up over his head.

"Well, that was… something," Tenn commented, looking around at the remains of the battle.

"Yes, another glorious victory won by the incredible strategic genius of Zim!" Zim proclaimed, fists planted on his hips. Tenn rolled her eyes, but chose not to comment on that.

"Right. Well, we should get out of here before anyone shows up to investigate this," she said, "I don't want to get arrested twice in the same day."

"Hmph, good point," Zim reluctantly acknowledged. Pulling a remote out of his PAK, he tapped a command into it; a few minutes later, the Voot zoomed down from above the surrounding buildings and landed on the street. Zim started walking towards it, GIR and Minimoose following after him, only to pause midway and look back at Tenn, who was standing on the sidewalk awkwardly, clearly not sure where to go.

"So, uh, what are you going to do now?" he asked, surprised to find himself genuinely curious.

"Well, unless I'm extremely lucky, I've probably lost that job at Marluck's, so I'll have to try and find another one," she said with a shrug, "Plus, that amoeba we just cut to pieces will probably have friends looking for me, so that's going to be fun…"

"Master, can we take her home with us?" GIR suddenly asked.

"What?" Zim and Tenn asked at the same time, blinking in surprise and confusion.

"Yeah, 'cuz then you can team up and take over Earth, and fight all the bad guys, and eat all the cakes and pizzas!" GIR continued.

"Stop spewing nonsense, GIR," Zim scolded, "Zim needs no help from other Invaders to conquer Earth!"

"Nyah!"

"No, Skoodge just crashes in our basement from time to time. He is not now nor will he ever be my partner."

"Nyah!"

"Well, yes, I suppose we did make a good team in that fight just now, even if Zim did do most of the work, but-"

"Nyah!"

"Curse you! Why did I make you such an eloquent and charismatic speaker!" Zim growled, rubbing the sides of his heads, while Minimoose gave a rather smug-sounding squeak. Glaring at the floating robot for a moment, Zim turned back to Tenn, who had watched this whole exchange with an arched antenna.

"Zim supposes he could use some… _minor_ assistance on Earth," he said, practically forcing himself to say it, "Are you interested in coming?"

"…Considering the alternative is staying on this dump, sure, let's do it," Tenn replied after a moment's thought. Tearing off the waitress outfit she was still wearing, leaving herself in just her Elite uniform, she added, "Besides, while it still sounds a little insane, I think I can see your earlier point about sticking it to the Tallest by conquering a planet even after they kicked me out. Bizarre as it seems, the thought of that is kind of exhilarating now that I've had time to dwell on it. And if nothing else, I remember what else you said before, and I am not someone who just gives up; if I couldn't get the conquest I wanted, I'll just take another one."

"Just remember that Zim gets top credit for it when it happens," Zim pointed out with a frown.

"Whatever. Let's just get this junk pile you call a ship out of here before anyone shows up to grab us," Tenn said, walking past Zim and climbing into the Voot.

"Zim is regretting this case of his endless generosity already," Zim muttered, as he and the robots got into the Voot as well.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze, especially since the Voot wasn't really built for multiple full-size passengers, but everyone managed to find room. And with that settled, ship took off, leaving Cyberflox behind and heading for Earth.

A whole new series of adventures was about to begin…

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: And as usual, my endings suck. But, I hope that that doesn't detract from your enjoyment of the rest of the story.**

**A note about continuity, in case anyone was confused by that mention of the Florpus. I know that the comics and movie clearly are meant to be different continuities, but since I love both and want to reference both, let's assume that the movie took place instead of Issues 1 and 2, and then the rest of the comics followed.**

**Nothing else to say, except a reminder that this series won't update as frequently as New Adventures. Still, keep an eye out for it.**

**Please review!**


	2. Welcome to Urth

**A/N: Whelp, here we are, the next entry in the Ruby Pair series. Gotta say, loving how much everyone is enjoying this story concept so far, and I hope you continue to enjoy what I come up with going forward.**

**Also, one quick note. And that's to thank my good buddy Invader Johnny, who suggested and wrote a small sequence for this chapter that I liked so much I decided to include it. I'll let you know which section it is at the end of the chapter.**

**Also, hoping everyone is doing okay in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Stay safe out there!**

**Nothing else to say for now, except read on!**

**Disclaimer: I do not, have never, and will never own Invader Zim or any related characters. They belong to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**The Ruby Pair Series**

**Welcome to Urth**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

The journey from Cyberflox to Earth wasn't very long, but this particular trip was unbearable for the two Irkens crammed into a ship that was only supposed to have one passenger at a time, especially not when loaded down with all the supplies Zim had bought. He and Tenn spent the entire ride semi-aggressively trying to shove each other off the one seat to claim it for themselves. And it didn't help either of their attitudes that GIR decided halfway through to start singing the Doom Song; Zim, not being willing to go through that again, shut him up after a few minutes by means of shoving Minimoose into his mouth (the moose didn't seem to mind all that much).

Finally, they arrived back at Earth, and descended to land in the hanger of Zim's base. As soon as the ship touched down, the pair of them practically leaped out of the ship, GIR following them more sedately and spitting Minimoose out.

"Ugh, that was the worse trip of my life," Tenn muttered as she stretched her limbs.

"Zim doesn't know what you're complaining about. It's my ship, I at least should be comfortable in it!" Zim snapped, as he likewise stretched out his kinks.

"I was your passenger, you should have made me comfortable!"

"Says who?"

"It's called common courtesy!"

"Uh, master?" the Computer cut in, "Is there a reason there's another Irken with you?"

"Yes, former Invader Tenn will be staying with us for the foreseeable future," Zim replied, Tenn flinching at his word choice.

"Do you have to call me _former_ Invader?" she asked archly, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

"Why not? It's true."

"Yeah? Well it's true about _you,_ too. Do you call yourself Former Invader Zim?"

"…Fair enough," Zim said after a moment, before moving on, "Anyway, Computer, set up chambers for her to stay in."

"Where, exactly?" the Computer asked.

"Eh, I don't care," Zim shrugged, "Where does Skoodge usually stay when he's here?"

"Either a storage closet in the basement or the air ducts," the Computer replied. There was a moment of awkward silence following that statement, and then Tenn turned to Zim with a flat look on her face.

"I'm not doing that," she said, utterly deadpan.

"Ugh, fine. Computer, find some other place to make living quarters for Tenn," Zim said, before turning to his robots, "And you two make yourselves useful and unload all that stuff we bought on Cyberflox."

"Yes my master!" GIR replied with a red-eyed salute, while Minimoose squeaked in acknowledgement.

As the robots went to work pulling crates out of the Voot, the two Irkens stood in a mildly awkward silence, waiting for the Computer to say something. Finally, Tenn sighed in slight frustration.

"Well, as long as we're waiting, can I get a tour of the base so I know where everything is?" she asked. Zim blinked, his mind having wandered from lack of anything to do before she caught his attention with those words.

"Eh? Oh, sure, I guess," he said. Taking one last glance at the robots to make sure they were actually following orders for once, he turned and walked towards a nearby elevator, Tenn following after him.

A little while later, the pair were below ground in the base proper, Zim leading Tenn through the various labs and other chambers.

"And this is the main test subject storage area," Zim stated, leading Tenn into a room filled with large tubes containing various lifeforms, and with an oddly sticky floor, "Watch your step, by the way. GIR likes to come down here and vomit all over the place. A lot."

"Thanks for the heads up," Tenn said, face twisting in disgust as she very carefully made her way through the room. Passing by a particular tube, she paused and arched an antenna at its occupant, a human child with red hair, a far too wide smile on his face, and a large probe sticking out of his head with a smiley face symbol on top of it.

"Hey there!" he greeted her in a rather strained voice, "I'm, urgh, so… HAPPY! …to meet you!"

"Uh, Zim? What the _flirk_ is this?" she asked, mildly disturbed by the sight.

"Hmm? Oh, that's just Nick. He's part of my test study in human emotions," Zim explained.

"'Part of'?" Tenn echoed. In response, Zim gestured to two other nearby tubes. Looking to them, Tenn saw that they contained a pair of middle-aged humans, also with probes in their heads; the man's probe had an angry face which matched the snarling look on his own face, while the woman's had a sad face, which was fitting as she was crying her eyes out.

"Let me out, you green freaks! I'm gonna smash your faces in! You hear me, you wastes of flesh?!" the man yelled, smacking his fists against the glass surrounding him.

"Oh, why did you take me? This is awful! My life is terrible!" the woman sobbed.

"After a while I got bored with just experimenting with _one_ human emotion, so I decided to grab Nick's parents and test other emotions on them," Zim said, scratching the side of his head in thought, "What's weird is that it didn't look like they even noticed he was missing in the first place. Or they didn't care. Meh, either way, doesn't matter."

"How could you tell?" Tenn asked, "Were you spying on them to see how they'd react to you taking their spawn?"

"Nope. They just happened to live next door," Zim replied with a shrug.

"On that subject, sir," the Computer butted in, "It occurs to me that their house has been vacant since we took them. It would be a simple matter to extend the base into and beneath it, both giving Tenn breathing room _and _increasing our workspace."

"Excellent idea! Glad I thought of it," Zim said with a pleased smile, earning a sigh from the Computer and rolled eyes from Tenn, "Get to work on that. I want it all ready by the time Tenn and I get back from skool tomorrow."

"Skool? Why would I want to go to some inferior educational facility for human smeets?" Tenn asked, narrowing her eyes at Zim.

"If you want to live in Zim's base, you'll aid in Zim's mission, and that means accompanying me as I carry out my work," Zim said, matching Tenn's glare with his own.

"You don't make Skoodge do that," the Computer pointed out.

"Skoodge doesn't live here, he just visits sometimes! Why must Zim keep repeating that?" Zim snapped, "Now, get to work on that base expansion, while I fill Tenn in on everything she needs to know in order to be at least moderately capable of aiding me in my glorious conquest of this planet."

With that, Zim spun on his heel and marched out of the room, leaving Tenn behind with an annoyed look on her face.

"It's going to be like this pretty much all the time, isn't it?" she asked the Computer.

"This is him on a good day," the Computer replied, a note of sympathy in its voice.

"Yeah, that's what I figured," Tenn said. Giving a resigned sigh, she followed after Zim, leaving the Computer to its work. Meanwhile, up on the surface, that work was carried out as discretely as anything designed by Zim was capable of being — which was to say that cables burst out of his house and slammed into the one next door, demolishing most of a wall as they spread throughout the house, reshaping its interior to tie it into Zim's systems. At the same time, the ground around the house bulged and cracked as Zim's base extended underneath it.

Naturally, everyone else in the cul-de-sac watched all this with apathy, before choosing to ignore it and move on with whatever they were doing beforehand, completely oblivious to the significance of what they had seen.

XXXXXXX

The next day, as the morning sun climbed into the sky, Dib Membrane was already in his garage, hard at work on his captured Irken ship.

"Hurry up with those repairs, human!" the Tak Ship AI snapped, "It's bad enough that I have to have your filthy little alien hands all over me, but do you have to work so slowly?"

"Hey, I'm doing the best I can," Dib replied, more than used to the ship's insults by now, "You know, you should be glad I've even bothered to patch you up at all, rather than use you for spare parts."

"Glad? Is that a joke?" the Ship practically snarled, "Since I fell into your possession, I've been hacked by Zim, overwritten by your putrid personality, crashed multiple times, been slingshotted into the future, nearly sunk in the ocean, and been stuck on a planet inhabited entirely by copies of Zim!"

"I don't know why you're complaining about that last part. You weren't even online for most of it," Dib pointed out.

"It's the principle of the thing!"

"Whatever. Now let me work in peace, or I'll hand you over to Clembrane for the day," Dib said, smirking as the Ship's screens all flashed at the threat.

"No! He'll fill me with pudding again!" the Ship pleaded.

"Good. Then quiet down and-"

"Are you being creepy with the ship again?" Gaz asked from right behind him. Dib jumped in response, not having heard her approach.

"Gah! Don't do that," he complained, "And I am _not_ 'being creepy'. I was trying to intimidate the ship into doing what I want… okay, yeah, saying that out loud, that _does_ sound kinda creepy."

"Ya think?" Gaz said dryly, "Now come on, it's time to head to skool, and I'm not going to be late because of you. Move it."

Knowing better than to try and push his luck, Dib didn't protest. Instead, he put away his tools and grabbed his skool supplies, ready for another day of confronting Zim.

Of course, things weren't going to go quite how he was expecting…

XXXXXXX

Back in Zim's newly expanded base, he and Tenn were returning to the hanger, where the Voot Cruiser was already converted into its disguise generator form. GIR and Minimoose trailed obediently behind them, though the former seemed more interested in the Suck Monkey he was drinking than what was happening.

"…And don't be fooled by the ridiculous size of his head. The Dib-Monkey is incredibly devious, and has ruined many of my most brilliant plans!" Zim was in the middle of saying.

"That's not as big an accomplishment as you're making it out to be," Tenn said in response, keeping a straight face even as Zim scowled at her.

"Hmph. Well, anyway, you must now choose a disguise to blend in amongst the pig-smellies," Zim said after a moment, "Something that will let you walk amongst them without notice. Something that-"

"I _know_ how making an Invader disguise works, Zim. I've used plenty," Tenn interrupted, frowning as she briefly remembered the various holographic disguises she'd used on Meekrob to great success, before those SIRs had destroyed everything.

"Er, right. In that case, go ahead," Zim said, gesturing towards his ship. Tenn merely nodded in response and walked up to the ship, bringing the screen online. She looked at the many disguises that the Voot suggested; it was hardly impressive compared to the ones her old ship could provide, but it was better than nothing. After all, if she was going to live on this backwards planet, first thing's first, she needed to fit in.

She brought up the first disguise suggestion, the image of an adult human with dark skin and hair, an oddly wide rear, and an overall rather unrealistic appearance.

"Too plastic-looking," she said with disgust.

Another disguise was of a woman in dark clothes and with her purple hair in pigtails.

"Too psychotic looking."

Another choice was of a redhead girl wearing a headband, a red shirt, and a purple skirt.

"That one looks good," Tenn said, pressing the screen. Two pods emerged from the Voot and closed on Tenn, making an egg shape when interlocked, with light pouring out of the seam as it activated.

"Ahhh! Damn it, Zim! You didn't tell me it would hurt! Why does it hurt?! It's a _holographic_ disguise!"

After a few minutes, the pod opened, revealing the disguised Tenn.

"Nyah!" Minimoose commented.

"Thanks," Tenn said, "But it does _not_ make me look less intimidating!"

"She looks like Takky!" GIR said, between sips of his Suck Monkey.

"Who?" Tenn asked, as Zim's eye began to twitch uncontrollably.

"NO! NO! NO!" he yelled, "This disguise will not do! It is pathetic! And no member of Zim's army of evil is pathetic!"

"Hey, wait a minute, I never said that I was a part of your-" Tenn started to protest, only for Zim to push her back into the Voot's pods. She pounded on the walls as they closed on her.

"ZIM, YOU BASTARD!" she yelled angrily, "Let me out!"

Zim wasn't listening. He continued to look around for a disguise he deemed acceptable, and after several minutes of searching (and Tenn promising to cut out his squeedlyspooch and make him eat it), he found something. So he pressed the activation button on the screen, and the Voot began to fabricate the selected disguise.

"Ahh, damn it Zim!" Tenn yelled, "You sick, twisted freak! Do you enjoy pain or something?!"

After a few seconds, Tenn emerged from the pod again, now with a less human-like disguise.

"INGENIOUS!" Zim proclaimed, "Now _this_ is a disguise worthy of Zim's army of evil!"

"It's a terrible disguise," the Computer stated.

"It's just like mine!" Zim shouted back.

"Case in point."

Meanwhile, Tenn was checking out her reflection in the screen. In contrast to her more spot-on disguise, she was now only wearing a longhaired redheaded wig and contacts with green eyes, while her green skin was exposed and her Invader uniform untouched.

She grit her teeth at the ridiculous attempt at a disguise.

"ZIM!"

"No need to thank me," he said, arrogantly and obliviously, "All in a day's…"

But he didn't get to finish, as Tenn sucker-punched him in the face and laid him out cold.

"You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do that," the Computer said, "Damn… the one time I'm not recording anything."

XXXXXXX

Some time later, after reluctantly reviving Zim, the Irkens had made it to the Skool. Now, as everyone prepared for their first classes of the day, Tenn opened her locker to sort her supplies, ready to get her first day here over with.

She closed her locker, only to be met with an angry human.

"Uh, hi?"

"I don't believe it!" Dib shouted, "First Zim, then Tak, and now you! What's it going to take for you Irkens to stop coming to Earth?!"

Tenn stared blankly at him for a moment, before recognition sparked in her eyes.

"Oh, you must be Dib," she said uncaringly, "Zim told me about you. Not going to lie, your head is even bigger than I expected. How do you keep your body from being crushed under such weight?"

"For the last time!" Dib snapped, "My head is not big!"

"That's like saying Zim is an alien," Tenn said with a smirk, "Just because you saying it, doesn't make it true."

"Ooh, good one!" Zita said as she walked by, "See, Dib? Even the new kid is more sane than you!"

As Dib sputtered, Tenn walked away, not really wanting to be a part of this conversation anymore. Just as she was about to enter the classroom, the front door burst open and Keef came running into the building.

"I can't be late again!" he said in a panic, "I don't want to spend the rest of the Skool year in the Underground Classroom!"

Being in such a hurry, he didn't really look where he was going, and that made him the perfect target for Torque, who stuck a leg out in Keef's way. Keef hit it and fell over, hitting the floor face first. As Torque snickered at a job well done and walked away, Tenn looked on at what had happened.

Honestly, she didn't care about human smeets picking on each other. But at the same time, she never had a tolerance for bullies; it reminded her too much of back in the Academy, where shorties like her were pretty much abused by the taller Irkens. So, seeing Keef scrambling to gather up everything that he'd dropped all over the floor before the bell rang, an extremely tiny part of her couldn't help but twinge with sympathy.

Seeing one of his books at her feet, she figured it couldn't hurt to help just this once, so she grabbed it.

"Hey you!" she snapped, holding the book out in Keef's direction, "I believe this is yours."

Keef looked up, only to meet the prettiest set of green eyes he had ever seen.

"Uhh… thanks," he said awkwardly, "I'm Keef."

"Don't care," Tenn said, "Just get your stuff, class is about to begin."

"Yeah… Thanks for the heads up, uhh…"

"Tenn," the disguised Irken said as she walked away.

"Tenn," Keef repeated dreamily, "What a pretty name."

A few minutes later, a starry-eyed Keef had taken his seat alongside the other students, while Tenn was standing in front of the room next to Miss Bitters. Despite having been forewarned by Zim, she still felt her skin crawl at being next to the ancient hag, but forced down the discomfort and kept a neutral expression on her face.

"Students, as you may have noticed, we have a new, useless lump of flesh being added to the class," Miss Bitters announced, before turning to Tenn, "If you have anything to say, do it now, and then never speak again."

Tenn repressed a scowl at the wording used to describe her, instead focusing on addressing the class.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Tenn. I'm a… friend, of Zim's from the old country, and now that I've moved here we're neighbors. It's very nice to meet you all," she said curtly as she recited her cover story, not feeling in the mood to dance around the point.

"Thank you for the brevity," Miss Bitters said, before looking over the class and pointing to two students at random, "Zita! Melvin! We need to make room for the new student. Go to the Chamber of Worthiness!"

"Yes Miss Bitters," the selected students moaned in resignation, getting up from their desks and walking towards an ominous archway in the back of the room that Tenn had somehow overlooked.

"Chamber of what-now?" Tenn asked, squinting one eye in confusion.

"It used to be that if we had to make room for a new student, I could just press a button and drop them through the floor into the Underground Classrooms, but then the skool board had 'moral concerns'," Miss Bitters explained, making air quotes on those last words, "Now we send two students into the Chamber, and whichever one doesn't come back forfeits their desk."

"What happens to them in there?"

"You don't want to know," Miss Bitters said, as a battered and slightly burned Zita reemerged from the Chamber, "Looks like you get Melvin's desk. Now sit down and be silent!"

Tenn stared for a moment, still slightly confused by the situation, before doing as she was told and taking the vacated seat.

"Now then, class, we will continue where we left off yesterday, regarding how all your hopes and dreams are utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things," Miss Bitters said, "Before we begin, however… Dib, would you like to get your paranoid delusions about the new student out of the way now, or will you be waiting to randomly interrupt later in class?"

"I'm not delusional!" Dib said, answering that particular question, "I mean, look at her! Are we really supposed to believe she just happens to have the exact same 'skin condition' as Zim? _And_ just happens to be wearing the exact same outfit?"

"Well, that just shows how little you know," Tenn sniffed in false offense, "This skin condition and fashion style just happen to both be very common in the Old Country that Zim and I are from."

"Yeah? And what country is that exactly?" Dib just, smirking smugly as if he'd just scored a major victory.

"…Oldcountrystan!" Zim blurted out before Tenn could say anything. Hearing the lame attempt at a name, she just barely resisted the urge to either facepalm or throw something heavy at his head. Probably both.

"That's not a real country!" Dib protested.

"Yes it is!" Zim snapped back.

"Enough!" Miss Bitters snarled, cutting off anything else Dib had to say, "You've now used up the thirty seconds a month that I'm willing to listen to your ongoing nonsense. Now be silent!"

Surprisingly, both Zim and Dib did as they were told and settled down in their seats. With that out of the way, class carried on as it usually did, with the small exception — overlooked by everyone else — of Keef being clearly more focused on staring at Tenn than paying attention to the class.

XXXXXXX

A couple of hours later, class let out for lunch, and the students made their way to the cafeteria. Zim led Tenn to a side table, where upon sitting down Tenn stared cautiously at the various substances on her tray that were supposed to be food.

"Zim recommends not actually eating any of this _caragash_," Zim commented, casually mashing the mess on his own tray with his spork, "Just move it all around so it _looks_ like you're eating, then no one will be suspicious."

Tenn made a noncommittal noise in response, absently following Zim's example while scanning the room. Aside from Dib — who was glaring at them from his seat at a table across the room next to a purple-haired girl she assumed from Zim's briefing was his sister — there was nothing that looked like a potential threat. Assured by that, she turned back to pretending to eat her "food", only to pause as she registered someone approaching the table. Looking up, she was surprised to see Keef walking up to them.

"Hey, Zim!" he greeted cheerfully.

"Ah, Keef. I see you continue to not be dead," Zim replied flatly.

"Yep," Keef said. Then he glanced at Tenn, fidgeting nervously for a moment before coughing and saying, "Hi. We didn't get a chance to properly meet before-"

"We exchanged names. What else did we need to say?" Tenn questioned.

"Heh, right," Keef laughed awkwardly, "So, um, how do you two know each other?"

"We knew each other back in the old country, and now we live next door to each other. That's it," Tenn said, bored already; hadn't this all been covered already back in the classroom?

"O-oh. So you're just friends?" Keef asked hopefully, eyes lighting up slightly.

"As opposed to what?" Tenn asked, now genuinely confused.

"Oh, um, nothing, never mind!" Keef said quickly, blushing brightly.

"Zim isn't even following this conversation but I'm thoroughly annoyed already. Go away," Zim commanded.

"Sure, okay. I'll come by your house to visit later," Keef said, starting to walk away but looking over his shoulder at them.

"Please don't."

"See you later!" Keef said, ignoring Zim's comment — and apparently Zim himself, as his gaze seemed more focused on Tenn, until he finally looked away to pay attention to where he was going.

"…What just happened?" Tenn asked, once Keef was out of hearing range.

"I used him as a proxy early in my time here on Earth in order to prove that Zim has friends and is therefore normal," Zim explained with a shrug, "But after I was done with him, he refused to take the hint and keeps bothering me. And worse, he somehow got it into his head that _Dib_ and I should be friends as well. Eck."

"Why not just get rid of him then? I've literally seen you blow up more for less of a reason."

"I've tried!" Zim protested, "I've ripped his eyes out, blown him up, vaporized him, even tossed him into a tree shredder one time, and nothing works, he just comes back! I think he's not even really human, but some kind of force of pure annoyance that wills itself into existence just to make my life miserable!"

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," Tenn said, "Especially since he seemed more interested in me just now than you. Seriously, what was up with that?"

"Eh, I don't know, you probably just caught his attention because you're new. He'll get over it," Zim said, turning his attention back to his tray. Tenn did likewise, the two sitting in silence for a few moments before a thought occurred to her and she looked at him again.

"You said you were using him as a friend to make yourself blend in more? I should probably do something like that myself."

"Knock yourself out," Zim said dismissively, "Just make sure to avoid the table in the corner — that's where I found Keef, and I think most of the others are weird even by human standards too."

"Duly noted," Tenn said, looking around the room again. Carefully taking in all of the assembled students, she took note of one in particular, namely Zita, who was sitting at a table near the cafeteria's doors. Deciding she looked as good a target as any, Tenn picked up her tray and walked over to Zita's table, plopping down in front of her.

"Hello," she greeted with forced friendliness, as Zita blinked in surprise at her presence, "I've decided that I need to make new friends here, and you seem like a good place to start."

"Uh, okay?" Zita said slowly, "It's Tenn, right? I'm Zita."

"I know. Miss Bitters said your name during that whole 'Chamber of Worthiness' thing," Tenn said, looking at Zita inquisitively, "By the way, what happens in there?"

"Ugh, don't ask," Zita replied, shuddering at the memory before shaking it off, "So, you're from the same country as Zim, and live with him now?"

"Next door to him, actually. And only for lack of better options," Tenn explained, "Believe me, the last thing I want is to spend extensive amounts of time around him."

"I can get that," Zita said, nodding her head sympathetically, "Especially if it means also having to hang around Dib too, by default. Nice put down of him earlier, by the way."

"I've dealt with worse," Tenn said, "Speaking of which, do you know what the deal is with that Keef kid? He kept looking at me weird, and it was creeping me out."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Zita replied, "He's just one of those people who wants to be friends with everyone, whether they want it or not. Just be glad he's not like Chammy."

"Who?"

"The last new girl we had here," Zita explained, "Total weirdo obsessed with everyone being friends with each other, and weirdly capable of making them be. Hell, she somehow convinced _me_ to be her best friend within a day. Still have no idea how that happened…"

"And where is this 'Chammy'?" Tenn asked, curious to if she'd have to deal with such a nuisance.

"I dunno, she just sorta disappeared one day. Of course, she was kinda obsessed with getting Zim and Dib to be friends, so I wouldn't be surprised if they knew what happened to her," Zita mused, before shrugging, "Eh, whatever, I don't really care, she freaked me out. So, changing the subject a bit, what do you like to do for fun?"

For the remainder of lunch, Tenn bluffed her way through conversation with Zita, slowly but surely setting up a facade of friendship. And all the while, she was ignoring the glare Dib was shooting her, and oblivious to the dreamy-eyed look Keef had locked on her.

XXXXXXX

A couple of hours later, skool let out for the day, and the students made their way out of the building. Giving Zita a politely curt goodbye, Tenn quickly fell into step beside Zim as they made their way onto the sidewalk, skies quickly greying above them.

"I see you had some success convincing the Zita-Human to be your friend," Zim commented.

"Surprisingly easy, really. I suppose humans must be naturally social creatures," Tenn replied, "I think I'll have a little fun seeing how much I can get out of her before I cut her loose. She might have some use."

"Aha!" Dib shouted, startling the Irkens as he popped out of a nearby bush, "I knew no Irken would be nice to someone for no reason! What are you planning, alien scum?"

"…Were you just hiding in that bush waiting for us to pass by and say something incriminating?" Tenn asked incredulously.

"Yeah, he does stuff like that a lot. Get used to it," Zim said, scowling as his surprise shifted to annoyance.

"Don't change the subject!" Dib said defensively, "What are you up to?"

"I'm merely trying to blend in more, if you must know," Tenn said, planting her hands on her hips, "Though if I _were_ plotting something more, why would I tell you? I mean, really, who would be stupid enough to talk about their plans with their enemy while they're still being enacted?"

"Well, I assumed that since Zim does that all the time-"

"You lie!"

"That figures," Tenn muttered with an eye roll, before speaking up again, "Okay, so it was nice listening to you two both being stupid, but I'm going to go home now."

"Don't get too comfortable in that little base of yours," Dib said threateningly as Tenn sidestepped him to continue down the street, "I'm the sole defender of the Earth, and if either of you think I'm going to back down just because Zim's got himself a new minion, you've got-"

"Minion?!" Tenn exclaimed, startling Dib into silence as she suddenly spun around to stare daggers at him, "Did you just call me a minion?!"

"Uh…" Dib stammered, before yelping as Tenn grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close.

"Listen carefully, human," she hissed, "I am not some no-name, second-string lackey you can just dismiss like I'm no threat. I am the greatest Invader of my generation, personally handpicked by the Tallest to infiltrate Meekrob itself. Not Skoodge, not Larb, not Spleen, me! So don't you dare look down on me! You got that?!"

"…There's an Invader named Spleen?" Dib asked, too stunned to give a more coherent reply.

"That word means something different in Irken," Zim commented, rather enjoying the unexpected show. For her part, Tenn rolled her eyes again and shoved Dib away.

"I might be stuck living here for the foreseeable future, but don't think that means I'm going to just play along with whatever stupid feud you two have settled into," Tenn stated firmly, "So do whatever you want to each other but leave me out of it. Or else I'll-"

Before Tenn could complete her threat, there was a sudden crack of thunder, as the gathering storm clouds hit their peak and started raining, soon drenching everyone out in the open. Zim, having long since turned bathing in protective paste into a second nature, wasn't affected beyond mere irritation. Tenn, who didn't even _know_ she was supposed to be wearing paste, was less lucky.

"AAAAHHHH!" Tenn screamed as her skin started smoking, running off in the direction of the base. Zim and Dib stood in the rain, watching her go in an awkward silence.

"You didn't warn her about what Earth water does to Irkens?" Dib asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Huh, I guess I didn't," Zim said faintly… before suddenly shoving Dib into a newly-formed puddle and taking off after Tenn as Dib sputtered in the water.

Meanwhile, Tenn had reached the base in record time, and was curled up on the floor in front of the TV as her skin still mildly burned. Minimoose had helpfully draped a towel over her, while the Computer had lowered several blowdryers from the ceiling to dry her off; GIR, meanwhile, was blankly staring at the TV, and in fact seemed oblivious to her presence.

This was the state that Zim found her in when he arrived home, showing zero concern for her as he casually tossed aside his disguise and toweled off. Noticing this, and pain having subsided enough to do so, Tenn jumped to her feet and tore off her own disguise to glare at him fully.

"What the _flirk_, Zim? You should have warned me this planet had Irk-damned acid rain!" she snarled.

"Technically speaking, it's not the water that's acidic, it's all the waste chemicals that the humans have seeped into the environment over the years," the Computer explained, "That's what's having the bad reaction with your biology."

"I don't care about the specifics, I want to know why you didn't warn me!" Tenn snapped, "And don't say-!"

"You didn't ask," Zim replied, earning a growl from Tenn, "And would you calm down? It's not a big deal, just bathe in paste like I do, and you'll be protected from the humans' filthy water."

"Ugh, fine, whatever, I'm too tired to stay angry," Tenn grumbled, "Is there any _good_ news to try and balance this out?"

"Well, I finished the base expansion, so now you can get your own section to stay in now," the Computer stated.

"Zim was wondering what that door was doing there," Zim commented, looking to where a large metal hatch of a door was now taking up a large chunk of the far wall. Tenn, who had also overlooked this due to the pain she'd been in, made a noise of acknowledgement and walked over to the door to examine her new living space, a curious Zim and his robots following after her.

Pulling the door open, they made their way down a short corridor connecting the house to the one next door. Flinging open the door on the other end, they emerged into the other house's living room. About half the space had been wrecked and torn apart by the base's expansion, replaced with metal and cables which also spread into the undamaged areas. Other than that, it was a perfectly normal-looking area, wallpaper and carpeting being fairly muted pastoral colors, a TV, couch, and other pieces of furniture scattered around. A look in the kitchen confirmed it was the same there, being a completely normal, human-designed room.

"Well, the interior design's a little 'meh'," Zim commented, "But that's easily fixable, I suppose."

"This is _my_ section of the base, Zim, _I'll _handle the decorating. No creepy monkey paintings or out of place toilets, thank you very much," Tenn said, "Though it just now occurs to me, couldn't we have just built downwards instead of outwards? Wouldn't that have been more subtle?"

"Maybe, but it would have meant potentially building right into that Dooxisi, and Zim is not dealing with that again!" Zim stated, eye twitching, while Tenn arched an antenna in surprise.

"Dooxisi? I thought they were extinct?"

"Zim wishes! I ran into one a few miles below the base a while back when I was looking for some splodium for a plan," Zim explained, shuddering at the memory, "Then he kept me as a 'guest' in his base and kept telling the most _boring_ stories I have ever heard! I wanted to tear my antennae out! I finally used up all the splodium I _did_ have just to blow him up, but I survived the explosion so he probably did too, and I don't want to run into him again."

"…Fair enough," Tenn conceded, after taking a moment to digest all that. And before she could say anything else, there was a knocking on her new house's front door. The Irkens blinked at that, and after sharing a look tossed their disguises back on, Tenn then going over to answer the door.

"Hi, Tenn! Nice house," Keef greeted brightly, standing on the doorstep with an umbrella in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. Tenn squinted an eye at him, before shooting a confused look over her shoulder at Zim, who shrugged.

"Why are you here?" she demanded crossly, though Keef didn't seem to notice.

"Well, uh, I just wanted to give you a 'welcome to town' present!" Keef responded with a slight blush, all but shoving the bouquet in Tenn's face. Still confused, she reluctantly took the flowers from him, causing his smile to grow even wider.

…

…

"…You can go now," Tenn said, before shutting the door in Keef's face. She then turned back to Zim, who looked as confused as she felt, "Why did he come all the way over here just to give me dead weeds?"

"I don't know. This is unusual behavior even for him," Zim said, "He didn't even seem to notice Zim was here, and I can't remember the last time he overlooked my presence."

"He loves you!" GIR proclaimed happily, Minimoose squeaking in agreement.

"Excuse me?" Tenn asked flatly.

"GIR, what nonsense are you spewing?" Zim demanded.

"On da TV, you gives flowers to someone to shows you love them!" GIR said, "Keefie loves da the pretty lady, just like I loves Master! And Moose! And TV! And Pig! And tacos! And-!"

"Yes, we get it GIR, you love everything," Zim cut him off, while Tenn's face twisted in disgust.

"A _human_ has _romantic_ interest in me? Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick," she grumbled, tossing the flowers to GIR, who immediately ate them, "I need to lie down and process this before I throw up. Go away."

Zim growled at the appearance of being ordered around in his own base, but shrugged it off and stomped over to the tunnel back to his house, GIR following him.

"Nyah!" Minimoose squeaked, lingering behind.

"No thanks," Tenn replied, tossing her disguise aside, "I just need to rest up."

"Nyah!" Minimoose acknowledged, floating after his master. Watching them all leave, Tenn flopped down on the couch, rubbing her forehead to ward off a migraine.

So, to recap her experiences after just one day on this planet: she was stuck sharing a base with the biggest moron she knew, on a filthy mud ball populated by idiotic apes who had poisoned their own water supply to the point it burned her skin, and some creepily happy human was _affectionate_ for her, probably for no reason other than her being nice to him in a moment of weakness. Honestly, looking at it all like that, a part of her was convinced that she had to be stuck in some kind of nightmare.

But, considering that the alternative was going back to slumming through random seedy spots of the galaxy and trying to scrabble together a living, she couldn't afford to give up on this. At least here, aiding Zim in his self-appointed mission, she had a chance to reclaim her lost glory. For that, she'd have to put up with all the annoyances that came with it.

With that thought in mind, Tenn drifted off to sleep, determined to make the most of her situation.

XXXXXXX

The next day had passed fairly similarly to the one before it, with the exception of Tenn bathing in paste before leaving the base, just in case. Other than that, it went by mostly the same, Tenn forcing herself not to fall asleep as Miss Bitters droned on nihilistically, ignoring Dib's death glares at her and Zim, and then chatting amiably with Zita during lunch. In all these regards, everything was the same as the day before.

What _was_ different was that Tenn was now fully aware of the longing looks that Keef was sending her way from his own table.

"I swear, he's making my skin crawl," she muttered as she moved around the mush on her tray.

"It could be worse," Zita commented, "Imagine if Zim or Dib had a crush on you."

Tenn shuddered in disgust at that mental image. True, at least Zim was a fellow Irken rather than a filthy human, but he was still _Zim_. The very idea of him potentially pining after her made her even more sick than what she was feeling from Keef's ridiculous crush.

"Do not even joke about that," she said firmly, earning a snicker from Zita.

"Seriously, though, it's just a harmless crush. Ignore him and he'll get over it," Zita said, "Though speaking of Zim, why do you hang out with him so much anyway? I mean, I get the whole thing about knowing each other already and living next door to each other, but that doesn't mean you _have_ to spend all the time together now."

"Well, he's the only person I actually know here, other than you," Tenn replied, "And I barely know you, at that. So my options are rather limited as to who I can spend my time with."

"You know, we _can_ hang out after skool too," Zita pointed out, "I can show you around town, introduce you to people, that kind of thing."

"…That's not a bad idea, actually," Tenn admitted after a moment, "At the very least, it wouldn't hurt to get the lay of the land."

"Great! We can do that later if you want."

"Sure, not like I have anything better to do."

They spent the rest of the lunch period hashing out a basic plan for what they would do afterwards. After that, they returned to class and trudged through the rest of the day, until the time finally came once again to escape the building for the day.

"Zim fails to see why you'd want to do this," Zim said as he and Tenn exited the skool, "Why spend all day with humans when you could be assisting Zim in his plans of conquest?"

"First of all, I've been here three days and haven't seen you plan anything," Tenn replied dryly.

"Zim is merely resting his brain meats and giving you time to settle in!" Zim protested, "I am as generous as I am brilliant!"

"Secondly, the more time I spend 'hanging out' with Zita and other humans, the more normal I'll appear and the more I'll blend in," Tenn continued, ignoring Zim's outburst, "So if I'm going to be living here on Earth, this is only natural for enforcing my cover."

"Gah, fine, whatever. Do what you like, Zim has his own things to attend to," Zim muttered, walking off. Tenn watched him go, before shrugging and walking over to where Zita was standing nearby, along with Sara and Jessica, whom she was quickly introduced to properly.

"So, what are we doing first?" Tenn asked, as the group started walking down the street.

"Well, we figured we'd start with the one place anyone our age in America should be completely familiar with," Zita said, "The mall!"

"Seriously?" Tenn asked flatly, "That seems somehow… cliche and lazy."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it," Jessica said, "Unless you _want_ everyone to think you're a weirdo like Zim, you should at least try to do normal stuff."

Tenn glared at Jessica, deciding she already didn't like her. Seeing this, Sara quickly spoke up to diffuse the tension.

"So, anyway, it's really great to have a new face around here," she said, "While we're shopping, you can tell us some more about yourself, and we can tell you about ourselves, all really get to know each other."

"Fine, I have nothing else to talk about, anyway," Tenn said, glad that she had ignored Zim's more blasé approach and actually created some basic fake background information for herself, which she began reciting as they started down the street.

XXXXXXX

Zim had returned to his base, fully intending to sit down and get to work on a new plan aimed at finally conquering Earth. However, after staring blankly at a screen for an hour with no ideas coming to him, he finally gave a growl of frustration and kicked the console, sending his chair lightly rolling across the floor while he crossed his arms and scowled.

"Invader's block?" the Computer asked dryly.

"Silence!" Zim snapped, scowl deepening, "Gah, what is wrong with me? I usually would have come up with fifty brilliant plans by now!"

"And maybe two would have been viable."

"Didn't Zim just tell you to be quiet?! Unless you have something actually helpful to add-"

"Honestly? I think you're lonely."

"Eh?" Zim blinked, staring dumbly at the console.

"Yeah. You've finally got some company of your own kind — other than Skoodge, who let's be honest is more of a prop to you than a person — and now you're feeling a little jealous that they're spending time with people other than you," the Computer explained, "Which means that you're so worked up about that that you can't focus on your work."

"Nonsense! Zim is not so needy," Zim sniffed dismissively, "Though I will admit that I _do_ enjoy having someone intelligent other than Minimoose to talk to for a change."

"I'll try not to take offense at that," the Computer replied flatly, "But the point is, you've adjusted rather quickly to having someone else around to listen to you, so suddenly having her choose to _not_ be around is hard for you to handle."

"Bah, enough of this ridiculous attempt at psychology! Zim needs no one's company! I have merely hit a creative dry spell; I'm sure once I've done something to take my mind off it, ideas will come to me in an instant," Zim said firmly.

"Okay then. Well, if you're looking for a distraction, I should probably tell you that Dib is breaking into the base through the new extension," the Computer said, as a screen flipped on to display Dib prying open one of the cables connecting the base's two houses and climbing in.

"What?!" Zim yelled, jumping to his feet, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?!"

"You didn't ask," the Computer replied smugly. Zim growled, before running off.

Meanwhile, Dib was crawling through the cable he'd pried open, the small space even more cramped by all the equipment he was carrying. In addition to his usual collection of cameras (all analog; digital was too easy to be dismissed as fake), he was also packing a pair of water pistols, several sets of sleep cuffs, a net launcher, and even an experimental laser gun he'd been tinkering with by studying the Tak Ship's weapon systems. It might seem like a lot, but considering he was now going up against not one but _two_ highly-trained Invaders, he didn't think he could afford to be underarmed.

Squirming through a junction, Dib paused to try and orientate himself with his mental map of Zim's home. If he was right, he should be in the base proper now, though he wasn't exactly sure where. Actually, come to think of it, should he have headed into Tenn's house instead? After all, it was new, so it might not be as well-defended as Zim's… no, he couldn't waste time doubling back now. Besides, at the very least he knew what to expect from Zim's security; he didn't know Tenn well enough to anticipate what she might have in place.

Having made up his mind, Dib continued in what he believed was the direction of the main control room — at which point the bottom of the cable beneath him was torn out, and with a yelp he found himself slamming hard into a floor.

"I must say I'm mildly impressed, Dib-Stink," Zim sneered as Dib scrambled to his feet, "I didn't think it possible for that head of yours to fit in such a small space."

"Seriously, what is with people calling my head big?" Dib demanded, "I've measured it, it's only a few inches bigger than average, tops!"

"Zim doesn't care," the Irken replied, deploying his PAK legs, "Now prepare to pay the price for daring to break into my base yet again!"

"Bring it on, I'll take you both- wait, where's Tenn?" Dib responded, trailing off as he noticed Zim was alone.

"Eh, she decided to spend time with some of the worm-babies she's pretending to befriend," Zim replied with a shrug, "Zim personally doesn't see the appeal."

"Great, she's manipulating people into being her friends," Dib said, before shaking his head and refocusing on Zim, "Well, never mind, I'll deal with her later. First, you're finally going down!"

"Ha! Zim would like to see you tr-GAH!" Zim started to gloat, only to be cut off as Dib suddenly whipped out one of his water pistols and shot a stream of water in Zim's face. The pressure of the stream was just strong enough to partially wash off Zim's paste coating, causing minor burns as it made contact with the exposed skin.

As Zim screeched in pain and stumbled backwards, Dib dropped the water pistol and pulled out the net launcher and fired it. The net slammed into Zim and wrapped around him, dragging the alien to the floor. Grinning triumphantly, Dib set aside the launcher and pulled out a set of cuffs and a camera, and started advancing on his foe.

Unfortunately, before he could do anything, Zim's PAK legs spread out and cut clean through the net, freeing him. Jumping up, he slashed out with the legs, knocking the camera and cuffs out of Dib's hands. Yelping in panic, Dib grabbed for his backup water pistol, only for Zim to kick him in the chest, knocking him on his back and sending him skidding across the floor, while the pistol was knocked out of his grip and sent flying in the opposite direction. Growling, Zim flung himself at Dib PAK legs first, the human barely rolling out of the way as they stabbed into the ground, then jumping to his feet and pulling his laser gun out. Aiming it at Zim nearly point blank, he pulled the trigger-

_Boom!_

-and it promptly exploded, sending him flying into a large nearby pipe, which burst open under his weight, allowing him to fall into its depths with a high-pitched cry. Zim, whose face was covered in soot from the nearby explosion, blinked in surprise for a few moments, before wiping his face clean and walking over to the pipe.

"Has this always been here?" he asked, scratching the side of his head.

"I may have had to rearrange a few things to properly link up with the extension," the Computer replied, "I'm pretty sure that dumps into the caverns under the base now."

"Hmm, well, this could be a fun little way to get rid of him," Zim mused with a smirk, "Should I go down there and hunt him for sport, or just leave him to rot? Or maybe I can-"

_DING-DONG_

"Oh, now what?" Zim growled. Looking to a nearby screen, he grimaced as he saw Keef standing at his house's front door, repeatedly pressing the doorbell. Muttering angrily to himself, he put his disguise on and stomped off towards an elevator, riding it up to the surface.

There was silence in the room for a moment, before Dib's voice echoed up from the pipe.

"Zim? Are you there? Come on, man, you can't just leave me down here, that's a jerk move even for you! …Wait, what's that sound? …Are those giant moles?! No, stay away! AAAAHHH!"

Meanwhile, Zim reached the surface and marched over to the front door, flinging it open.

"Hey Zim!" Keef greeted, oblivious as ever to the clear annoyance on Zim's face, "Is Tenn here? I tried her place, but she didn't answer the door."

"No, she's out with some of those female dirt-monkeys from class," Zim responded in exasperation, "Now begone with you, Zim is busy!"

"Okay, I guess I can go track her down. Then I can give her the present I got her!" Keef said happily, Zim blinking as the boy held up a rather mangy-looking cat with a pink bow tied around its neck, "I found it in the park! You think she'll like it?"

"No," Zim said flatly.

"Huh, why? Is she more of a dog person?"

"That's not what I-"

"You're right, I should just ask her myself! Here, you can keep the cat, GIR might like a playmate. Bye!" Keef said, gently leaving the cat at Zim's feet before turning and leaving.

Zim watched him run with a scowl, which he then turned on the cat, which was looking up at him with a look that somehow perfectly blended annoyance and apathy.

"Zim is not going through this pet nonsense again! Go away!" he commanded the animal.

"HIIISSSS!" the cat screeched, suddenly leaping into the air to latch onto Zim's face with its claws.

"AAAHHHH!" Zim screamed in pain, running around blindly as he attempted to get the cat off of him.

"I am so glad I remembered to be recording this time," the Computer said happily.

XXXXXXX

At the City Center Mall, Tenn's group emerged out of the front doors, all of them carrying several shopping bags each, except for Tenn herself.

"I don't believe this," Jessica sniffed, "We were in there for over two hours, and you didn't buy a single outfit!"

"I told you all when we got here, I'm not interested in clothes shopping," Tenn replied testily, "I have plenty of clothes, I don't need to buy more. Seriously, what's the point of buying more clothes than you need, which you'll probably only wear once anyway?"

"It's the principle of the thing!" Jessica snapped, "I mean, what girl our age doesn't like shopping? I'm starting to think that that freak Dib is right and you really are from another planet."

Tenn's eye twitched at that. But before she could say or do anything, Zita sighed heavily.

"Jess, we're trying to help her adjust to living here now, not insult her," she said, giving Jessica a dark look.

"It's not my fault all she did was hang back like a weirdo instead of doing something as normal as this," Jessica shot back.

"Yeah, but saying that _Dib_ is right about her?" Sara asked, "That's just wrong on so many levels."

As the three girls descended into bickering, Tenn rolled her eyes and kept walking down the street. She didn't particularly care what any of them thought of her, so long as they didn't seriously believe Dib's accusations. Beyond that, she'd at least managed to personally scout out some of the city, and while she found the obsession with the Mall pointless, she _did_ take note of its high-end security; she might take some tips for the base. Furthermore-

"Hi, Tenn!" Keef said, suddenly appearing in front of her. With a startled yelp, Tenn jumped back several feet, while the other girls paused in their argument to see what was happening, rolling their eyes in disgust when they noticed Keef.

"Don't do that!" Tenn snapped, "And what do you want now?"

"Do you prefer cats or dogs?" he asked in response, Tenn blinking at the question.

"Neither," she said after a moment, "Now go away."

"But, I-"

"_No_," she said firmly, glaring at him, "I don't have time to appease your ridiculous little crush. So knock it off and leave me alone."

"Bu-but, I've never felt this way about anyone before!" Keef protested desperately, "That's gotta be a sign we're meant to be together! Give me a chance!"

"This is like something out of a bad rom-com," Sara muttered to the others.

"C-grade soap opera at best," Jessica added.

"Just to be clear, I was only nice to you when we met out of a moment of misplaced pity. I am not remotely interested in your or your emotions," Tenn said, "Now, last chance. Walk away before I send you away."

"No! I'll do whatever it takes to earn your love!" Keef said dramatically.

"Forget soap operas or rom-coms, this is like an anime parody," Zita commented, the others nodding in agreement.

"Okay, that's it. I'm officially out of patience," Tenn said flatly, pulling a palm-sized spherical device out of her PAK and holding it out, "Here, hold this."

"What's this?" Keef asked, taking the sphere and staring at it curiously. In response, Tenn pressed a button on her wrist, activating the device. It popped open, and cables shot out, rapidly wrapping around Keef until everything except his head was encased in a metal cocoon. As he blinked in surprise, a rocket also popped out of the sphere and ignited; with a scream, Keef was dragged off into the air, soon disappearing over the horizon.

Tenn smirked as he watched him go, before turning to the girls, who were all staring in shock.

"What the hell was that?" Sara asked incredulously.

"A little something my parents cooked up," Tenn replied smoothly, glad that of all the cover stories she could have created, she went with the scientist concept, "Comes in handy when dealing with creepy stalkers. Or door-to-door salesmen."

That earned some amused snorts from the others, Zita and Sara turning to Jessica with smug looks.

"See, I told you she'd be fun," Zita said.

"Ugh, fine, whatever, I guess that was pretty cool," Jessica said, waving it off and looking at Tenn, "I still think you're weird, though."

"Fair enough, I still think you're stuck-up," Tenn replied, making sure to make it sound playful, "Anyway, I think I've had enough excitement for one day. I'm going home, see you all at skool."

The other girls said their goodbyes, which Tenn barely paid attention to as she started walking away. As she made her way back to base, she silently mused over everything that had happened over these first few days on Earth.

"_Well, things have certainly been… interesting, to say the least,_" she thought, "_Less dangerous than Meekrob, for sure, but definitely more eventful. But, I suppose things will settle down soon enough._"

Just as she thought that, Tenn entered the cul-de-sac… and was greeted by the sight of numerous laser blasts erupting out of Zim's house. Cursing, she charged the house, ready to join a fight, only to skid to a halt and stare in confusion as a cat suddenly darted out of the house and Zim emerged immediately after, firing at it with a blaster but missing completely as it bolted down the street.

"And stay out!" Zim snarled, while GIR appeared next to him and waved after the cat.

"Aw, bye kitty!" the robot said sadly, before perking up as he saw Tenn approach them, "Hi, pretty lady!"

"What the hell was that?" she asked, squinting an eye at Zim.

"Keef left that filthy animal here in an attempt to please you," Zim replied in disgust, throwing off his disguise as he reentered the house, Tenn following him and GIR heading for the couch, "And then I couldn't get it to leave! And it dared attack me!"

"Well, you won't have to worry about him for awhile," Tenn stated as she took off her disguise and examined the relatively minor damage to the base, "I strapped him to a rocket and launched him. I figured he ended up at least a few counties over."

"Ha!" Zim barked a laugh, enjoying the mental image for a moment before giving Tenn a questioning look, "So, are you done wasting time with your fake human friends? We have work to do."

"How is me pursuing my cover keeping you from working?"

"Not the point! Our deal was that you'd provide Zim with the help I don't need but would appreciate, in exchange for me letting you stay here!"

"Ugh, fine, I don't feel like arguing over something this pointless," Tenn said, throwing up her hands in defeat, "But I will say that reserve the right to spend time with Zita and the others on occasion just to continue to blend in."

"Why?" Zim asked, blinking, "You've proven that you can make friends and are therefore a normal human. You don't need them anymore, just cut them loose. That's what I did with Keef."

"And how has that worked out for you?" Tenn asked dryly, smirking as Zim scowled in response, "I'll handle things my own way, Zim. Now then, let's get down into the lab and get to work."

Zim merely grumbled at once again being given orders in his own base, watching as Tenn flushed herself down into the lab.

"This is going to take some getting used to," he muttered, before pausing and scratching the side of his head, "Huh, I feel like I'm forgetting something. GIR, is there something I was going to do?"

"Monkey!" GIR replied, ignoring his master in favor of the TV.

"That figures," Zim said, rolling his eyes, "Oh well. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll remember it later."

With that, Zim headed down to his lab, ready to get to work with his new partner.

XXXXXXX

"…And that was when I realized it was time for my semi-annual toenail clipping," Xooxi the Dooxisi said, leaning back in his recliner as he recounted his story, "Fortunately I had remembered to charge my laser nail clippers, otherwise I would have had to do it manually, and there's nothing worse than that, am I right?"

"Please kill me now," Dib groaned from where he was slumped on Xooxi's couch, barely conscious from boredom. Xooxi had been rambling for hours, ever since his giant moles had dragged Dib into the base, and Dib honestly couldn't take it anymore.

"Haha, you're such a kidder! Not at all like that Irken jerk," Xooxi laughed, "Hey, wanna play a few rounds of Blumpo? I'll go grab the board!"

"Please don't," Dib begged, only for Xooxi to ignore him and run off. Dib considered making a break for it, but decided against it as the moles growled and pointed their head-mounted lasers at him, forcing him to stay on the couch.

"Curse you Zim, curse you," he moaned, as he slumped further on the couch, silently praying that he could get out of here soon.

Unfortunately, it would be awhile. But that's a story for another time…

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: And done. Sorry if this was a little all over the place, but there was a lot of stuff I wanted to cover for Tenn setting up shop on Earth; some might be important later, some might not, I'm honestly not sure.**

**Again, special thanks to Invader Johnny, who wrote the sequence from when Tenn is getting her disguise to Keef developing his crush on her. That was simply too good not to use — it's such a bizarre pairing idea, even if one-sided, and I wanted to play with it. Oh, and Tenn "befriending" Zita was also his idea, which I liked, especially after Zita's slightly large role in Issue 50.**

**Speaking of which, hoping everyone enjoyed all the comic references scattered throughout this chapter.**

**Also, I love cats. That whole bit just seemed like something that would happen in IZ.**

**That's all for now. See you all next time, whenever that is. And once again, remember to stay safe and healthy out there.**

**Please review!**


	3. Beefus Megabombus

**A/N: Well hey there, everyone. I know, it's been a while since the last update, but I did warn that I wouldn't be updating this on a regular basis. And in this particular case, it was because I got so caught up in trying to break my writer's block on Season 2 of New Adventures that I didn't want to start work on anything else and distract myself. But now I'm taking a crack at rotating through projects, so maybe that'll help.**

**Anyway, glad to be back at this one. And I think you're all going to enjoy this chapter; it's based on a proposed IZ episode that never made it past the concept stage, which Eric Trueheart has discussed at several InvaderCONs over the years (you can find a semi-detailed description for it on the IZ wiki). It's a fun idea, and since I'm writing this story closer to the style of IZ canon than how New Adventures has developed, this seemed like a good place to play with it. Though obviously I'm taking some liberties with the concept to fit this story of mine.**

**On a more somber note, I want to dedicate this chapter to my cat Gumball (2004-2020), who was recently put down after being diagnosed with pretty severe cancer.**

**So, all that said, read on and enjoy! And let me just once again wish everyone wellness and good health in these troubling times.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim, its canonical characters, or even the general idea for this chapter. All that belongs to Jhonen Vasquez and company.**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**The Ruby Pair Series**

**Beefus Megabombus**

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Tenn had seen a lot of weirdness in her life. After all, you don't rise to the top ranks of Invaders in the Irken Empire, then survive an extended period of time on a planet whose environment forced its dominant species to evolve into beings of pure energy, without going through some experiences outside of most people's definition of "normal". And that wasn't even covering the general weirdness she'd had to adjust to ever since her banishment had led to her living on Earth. So, she figured she had a pretty good ability to handle whatever was thrown her way.

That being said, watching her so-called partner rolling on the sidewalk with a large-headed human, the two of them fighting like a pair of half-braindead dogs, was stretching her limits of belief just a little bit.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, crossing her arms in annoyance as she watched the pair of archenemies claw and scratch at each other, yelling insults that varied from semi-coherent to utterly nonsensical. This had been going on for twenty minutes already, and it didn't show any sign of slowing down anytime soon.

"Okay, I've had enough," she finally decided. Deploying her PAK legs, she fired a plasma blast at a nearby car, the resulting explosion catching Zim and Dib's attention.

"What the hell?!" Dib shouted, as he and Zim instinctively jumped away from the explosion and each other.

"Glad I've got your attention," Tenn said dryly, as the boys turned to look at her, "Now then, this whole display is pathetic, and I'm done watching it. So, human, I suggest you leave, or I'll start blowing up more than just cars."

To prove her point, Tenn aimed at a building across the street. Dib followed her aim, and his eyes widened as he saw that she was targeting a Bloaty's Pizza Hog.

"…Oh, wow, you guys are so dead," he said after a moment, smirk forming on his face.

"You lie!" Zim snapped, before he too noticed what building Tenn was targeting, "Er, but maybe you _should_ target something else."

"Oh please, what do I have to fear from some obese human in a pig suit?" Tenn sneered, gesturing to the picture of Bloaty in the restaurant window.

"He's not the one you should be worried about," a new voice said from behind her.

"Huh?" Tenn said, turning to face the speaker… and then screamed as several animatronic dolls with glowing eyes and metallic claws tackled her to the ground.

Gaz stood on the sidewalk, hands on her hips and several more of her security dolls by her side as she watched the first batch maul Tenn. She looked over to where Zim and Dib were watching with a mix of shock and resignation.

"No one threatens Bloaty's on my watch," she said, turning a glare on the other Irken, "And if she's living with you, you should have made this sort of thing clear to her. So this is your fault."

"How is that Zim's-AAAHHH!" Zim's protest was cut off as the rest of the dolls jumped him as well.

Dib stepped back to watch, very much enjoying the sight of the two Irkens being attacked. After a few minutes, however, they managed to break free of the tangled mass of dolls and ran off down the street; the dolls pursued for a few yards, before giving up and returning to their mistress' side.

"See? This is why you should help me out more often, we're a great team!" Dib exclaimed, causing Gaz to roll her eyes.

"I did that to protect Bloaty's, not to help your huge head," she said, "Speaking of which, I'm getting lunch. Come along or don't, I don't care."

"Yeah, okay," he said with a shrug, following after her. Glancing at the dolls, he arched an eyebrow and asked, "By the way, why did you even bring your dolls along with you?"

"Eh, Dad's in a Spring Cleaning mood, and I don't want him to find them and switch them on by accident," she replied, "That wouldn't end well for anyone."

"Ah, good point," Dib acknowledged, as the siblings entered the restaurant.

Meanwhile, down the street, Zim and Tenn had finally realized that the dolls were no longer chasing them and allowed themselves to stop and catch their breath. Looking themselves over, they saw that despite the pain, they had no serious injuries, and their PAKs were already healing the damage.

"That girl is insane!" Tenn snarled, hissing as the pain momentarily spiked during the healing process.

"Yes, and the worse part is that for some reason she actually cares about her smelly dirt-child sibling," Zim admitted, readjusting his torn shirt as the nanites supplied by his PAK mended it, "I've learned the hard way that I can't go too hard on the Dib-Monkey during our fights when she's around, or she'll retaliate. It really puts a crimp on our epic battles."

"'Epic battles'? Just now, the two of you got in a slap fight because you both tried to enter the candy store at the same time," Tenn said in a deadpan.

"Shut up!" Zim snapped.

The resulting argument continued for the remainder of the walk back to their base. It only stopped when, as they were entering the cul-de-sac, the sound of engines caught their attention. Looking up, the pair saw a Voot Cruiser zooming down from the atmosphere towards Zim's house, descending into the roof.

"Were you expecting someone?" Tenn asked suspiciously.

"Eh, it's probably just Skoodge," Zim said, "He comes by every couple of months for a supply exchange."

"What? I thought you went to Cyberflox for supplies?"

"For the most part, but Skoodge brings me equipment and other things that are hard to get without access to the Empire's distribution chain," Zim explained, "In exchange, I give him things he wants from here on Earth. Human snacks, mostly, but also the occasional video game or book or movie, stuff like that."

"Huh, wouldn't have thought he had the spine to engage in black market dealings," Tenn commented, as the pair continued towards Zim's house.

"Zim is a master of convincing people to do what I want!" Zim declared as he flung open his front door and entered the base.

"You can't even get GIR to stop making a mess half the time," Tenn replied as she followed Zim in, gesturing to where GIR and Minimoose were sitting on the couch, a large tray of nachos sitting between them. The crazy SIR unit was staring blankly at the TV, and every few moments would grab a handful of the cheesy snack and messily stuff it into his mouth, letting half of each bite dribble over him and onto the couch.

"That doesn't count! Nothing in the universe can make GIR obey orders!" Zim protested snippily. Tenn rolled her eyes in response, choosing to remove her disguise rather than reply; judging by Zim's smug smirk as he did likewise, he was clearly taking that silence as a victory.

Before either of them could say anything else, Skoodge emerged out of the toilet elevator and walked into the living room.

"Hey Zim. Say, do you have caramel snacks this time? You wouldn't believe the hoops that the Tallest make me go through to get some back home, those huge jerky-" he said as he entered the room, only to freeze as he saw Tenn standing there. His mind went blank in surprise for a moment, and then he instinctively shifted to self-protective sycophancy, "Great and glorious people! All hail the Tallest!"

Tenn rolled her eyes again while Zim snickered at Skoodge's reaction.

"Relax, Skoodge. She's exiled and bitter about it too," Zim explained, snickering some more as Skoodge visibly relaxed.

"Oh, thank goodness, the last thing I need is to give the Tallest another excuse to try and kill me again," Skoodge sighed in relief, before looking to Tenn in confusion, "But, what are you doing here of all places?"

"Well, I was stuck working as a bar waitress on Cyberflox when I ran into this idiot," Tenn explained, Zim glaring at her description of him, "And I agreed to help him conquer this pitiful planet as a way of proving my worth to the Tallest again."

"Oh, okay then. Glad to hear you're making the most of it," Skoodge said, before turning to Zim and adding, "And I'm glad to hear that you're willing to accept help. Honestly, I was always kinda worried you would never be open to making more Invader friends."

"Again with this friendship nonsense? The only friend an Invader needs is his squidgyblit!" Zim sneered, holding up the pen-shaped object in question, the pink rubber extension on its upper end bouncing in response to the movement.

"Look, no one's denying that the squidgyblit is the best thing ever," Skoodge said.

"Agreed," Tenn said, nodding sagely.

"But you need more than that," Skoodge continued, "I mean, everyone needs more than just work, after all. Heck, even the Tallest have each other to balance out their official duties with fun."

"Bah, Zim needs no one, I am just being too generous for my own good," Zim said, "Now enough of this! You came here for a supply exchange, and that's what we'll do! Computer, begin unloading Skoodge's ship."

"Yes, Masteeeerrrrrrrr," the Computer started to reply, only to trail off into a slow-speed slur that cut off in a static pop. The Irkens all blinked in confusion at that, which only grew as all the lights flickered and then shut off, leaving the house dark except for the light coming through the windows.

"Eh? What's going on? Computer, respond!" Zim ordered. When nothing happened, Zim scowled and glared at where his robots were still sitting on the couch, "GIR! What did you do?!"

"Nothing!" the robot replied around another mouthful of nacho, while still staring at the now blank television.

"Oh, really?" Zim asked, "Minimoose, what did he do?"

"Nyah!"

"Really? He's telling the truth?" Zim asked, arching an antenna in surprise.

"Nyah!"

"Well if your stupid robot didn't damage the base somehow, what did?" Tenn demanded.

"Maybe that hive had something to do with it?" Skoodge suggested, which earned him odd looks from the others.

"What hive?" Tenn asked.

"Uh, that weird hive-looking thing on the back of the house?" Skoodge explained, "I assumed you knew about it."

They stared at him for a moment, then exchanged a look and made their way to the back door on the other side of the kitchen, Skoodge following behind them. Exiting through it into the backyard, they turned to face the rear of the house, and were greeted by the sight of what appeared to be a massive reddish-brown beehive stuck to the upper level of the building.

"What is this?!" Zim exclaimed, while Tenn shot a deadpan glare at Skoodge.

"It didn't occur to you to maybe mention this when you first came in?" she asked.

"Hey, in my defense, I've seen a _lot_ of weird stuff when I've come to visit," Skoodge replied, "Like, has Zim ever told you about the cybernetic battle-sloth?"

While Tenn squinted an eye in confusion, Zim had noticed something else, an odd smell coming from the hive. Narrowing his eyes, he extended his PAK legs to lift himself up so that he could examine the hive more closely. Looking at it carefully, he reached out and poked it, his eyes widening as he realized what he was seeing.

"This isn't beeswax! It's _meat!_" he said, catching Skoodge and Tenn's attention.

"A beehive made out of meat?" Tenn asked, eyes narrowing in thought, "That sounds weirdly familiar. I think I've heard about something like this before."

"Yes, obviously so has Zim," Zim said quickly, "But I'll let you prove your capabilities by being the one to explain it."

Once again rolling her eyes (and sweet Irk, but she seemed to be doing that a lot lately), Tenn chose not to retort to that. Instead, she pulled a data-pad out of her PAK and started sorting through a database on all species known to the Irken Empire. After a few minutes, she found what she was looking for.

"Here we go," she said, reading the information aloud, "Carne Bees, scientific name _Beefus Megabombus_. A sentient race from the Viande Nebula, known for building their hives and technology around meat harvested from their prey animals, which they only feed on the bodily fluids of."

"Yes, yes, that's very fascinating," Zim said in a tone that made it clear it was anything but, "However, I'm much more interested in why they've built a hive ON MY BASE!"

"I have no idea. According to this, they almost never leave their home system," Tenn replied, "By all rights, they shouldn't even be on this planet."

"Well, if they're sentient, should we try talking to them?" Skoodge suggested, "I'm sure we can fix this easily enough if we try."

"Oh, Zim will talk to them alright," Zim snarled, pointing two of his PAK legs at the hive, blasters charged, "Attention filthy meat bees! You are trespassing on the property of the almighty Zim! Leave immediately or face my wrath!"

For a few moments, there was no response, and then several panels opened along the side of the hive… and Zim's confidant smirk was wiped right off his face as several archaic-looking cannons popped out and aimed at him. Yelping, Zim fell to the ground and scrambled back to stand with an equally shocked Skoodge and Tenn. And before any of them could otherwise react, a larger panel opened above the cannons and a buzzing sound filled the air as several bees the size of tall humans flew out to hover above the Irkens, bulbous red compound eyes glaring at them and sharp stingers aimed in their direction.

Also, for some reason they were all wearing black tricorne hats with white skulls printed on them.

"Avast, ye scallawags!" one of the bees, who had a fancy blue ribbon wrapped around his hat, declared, "Surrender, or prepared to be keelhauled, savvy?"

The Irkens stared blankly at the bee who had spoken, before exchanging confused looks.

"Did either of you understand any of that?" Zim asked.

"I understood 'surrender' and 'prepared', but the rest was gibberish," Tenn replied, Skoodge nodding in agreement.

"Jeez, Ned, this is why we all tell you to knock it off with talking like that," one of the other bees commented to the one who had spoken, "No one ever has any idea what you're saying."

"We're pirates, Jerry, this is how we're supposed to talk!" Ned snapped, "And I'm First Mate, so if I want to do something you can't stop me!"

"Wait, back up," Tenn said, regaining the bees' attention, "You're _pirate_ bees?"

"Aye, that's right, lass," Ned the First Mate said, "Rather that stay in our home systems sitting soft and fat, our hive sails the solar winds, taking our plunder where we find it!"

"And by plunder I'm guessing you mean meat?" Skoodge asked.

"Well obviously. Why would we be interesting in those worthless shiny rocks or bits of metal all other species obsess over?" Ned sneered, "But never mind that! You bottom-feeding barnacles dared to attack us, so it's Cosmic Jones' Locker for you!"

"Hang on!" Tenn protested, "If you're pirates, then I demand parlay!"

"What?!" Ned snarled angrily.

"Why are you asking for parsley?" Zim asked, looking at her in confusion. She smacked him upside the head in response.

"Not parsley, you moron! Parlay! A ceasefire and neutral meeting with their leader!" Tenn explained, "It's a universal code that all pirates have to abide by!"

"Hang the code!" Ned spat.

"You know she's right, Mr. 'We're Pirates We Have to Act Like It'," Jerry said smugly. Ned grumbled angrily, before gesturing with his stinger.

"Fine, we'll take you bilge rats before the Queen," he said begrudgingly, "But try anything, and I'll personally take your heads!"

Zim looked like he was about to snap something back in response, but Tenn slapped a hand over his mouth before he could.

"We understand perfectly, thank you," she said quickly. Ned glared at them some more, then turned and flew towards an opening in the meat hive, which simultaneously lowered a ramp. The other bees then herded the Irkens towards the ramp, which they ascended into the hive.

The Irkens' antennae all wilted in disgust at the overwhelming smell of old meat that hit them. Trying to ignore it, they focused on examining their surroundings as they were marched down what appeared to be the central corridor of the hive ship. Just like the exterior, everything was made out of meat, though there was machinery scattered about, such as light fixtures in the upper walls every few feet, or cables that ran across the floor and ceiling. All in all, it made a very odd setup.

After a few minutes of walking, the Irkens were ushered through a large pair of meat doors adorned with metal skull insignia, onto what they assumed was the main bridge of the ship. It was a little larger than Miss Bitters' classroom, with consoles ringing it along the walls that were manned by more bees, and a large viewport taking up the wall directly opposite the door. And in the exact center of the room was a throne, which spun around as they entered to reveal a bee even larger than the others, wearing a fancier tricorne and a furred cape.

"Who is this?" the apparent Queen Bee demanded as the group approached.

"Your Majesty, these scum dared to threaten the ship," Ned said, gesturing to the Irkens with his stinger.

"Only because you landed your disgusting ship right on top of my base!" Zim exclaimed, glaring at the bees.

"Ah, I see. So you own the facility we're drawing power from," the Queen Bee mused, gesturing to a nearby screen. Displayed on it was a red diagram of the ship perched atop a blue outline of the base, a series of yellow arrows shooting up from the base into the ship.

"Well, that explains why everything suddenly shut down," Skoodge commented.

"But why are you even here? Your species is said to never leave your home nebula," Tenn demanded.

"Oh sure, those lazy fools," the Queen sneered, "They just stay on the home worlds, content to share the scant resources those planets have to offer. Whereas my hive travels the stars, plundering the glorious meats of every planet that crosses our path, more than any hive back home will ever see in their lives!"

"Yes, that's all well and good, Zim can appreciate the need to do better than everyone else and rub their faces in it," Zim said, glaring at the Queen, "But what I do not appreciate is you draining power from my home!"

"Sorry about that," the Queen said dismissively, "But while we harvest this world's meat, we need to keep our ship powered, and your base has more power than any other source available."

"You dare take power that belongs to Zim?" Zim demanded, "I don't care if you want the humans' filthy meat-foods, but no one steals from me! Leave immediately, or suffer my wrath!"

"Ha! You think you can threaten me? I can't tell if I'm amused or insulted," the Queen scoffed, "Either way, such impudence cannot be allowed to stand. First Mate, deal with him!"

"Gladly, Your Majesty," Ned said with a cackle, brandishing his stinger at Zim, "Prepare to walk the plank!"

"We have a plank? Since when?" Jerry asked, cocking his head in confusion, "And what good would that even do? We're not over water. They'd just fall a few feet and hit the ground, that's not fatal."

"Shut up, Jerry! It's a metaphor for killing!" Ned snapped.

"Couldn't you just say that?" Jerry asked.

While the two descended into petty squabbling, and the Queen face-palmed in reaction, the Irkens looked to each other.

"We need to get out of here before they kill Zim!" Skoodge hissed in concern.

"More importantly, before they decide to kill us too," Tenn added.

"Hey!" Zim snapped.

"Like that wouldn't be your reaction if they were targeting one of us?" Tenn asked, giving him a deadpan look.

"…Fair point," Zim admitted with a shrug, while the bees continued to argue.

"Enough!" the Queen shouted, getting the attention of her crew, "Just dispose of them already so we can get back to the plundering!"

"Of course, Your Majesty. I apologize," Ned said with a bowed head before turning back to the Irkens, "Now-AH!"

Whatever bizarre pirate-themed threat Ned was about to say was interrupted as a plasma blast from Zim's PAK legs hit him in the thorax and sent him flying. Tenn and Skoodge, meanwhile, likewise opened fire on the bees surrounding them, scattering the crowd and giving them breathing room. Before they could do anything else, however, the bridge's doors opened and dozens of more bees started swarming in.

"Damn it, we need to get out of here before they overwhelm us just by sheer numbers!" Tenn spat, blasting one bee back only for three more to take his place.

"Quick, the viewport! We can break through it and jump!" Zim said, gesturing towards the large screen, the others quickly nodding in agreement. With Tenn covering their rear, the three ran past where the Queen was sheltering behind her throne and towards the far wall.

"Okay, but what are we supposed to break it wit-AAAHH!" Skoodge started to ask as they reached their target, only for Zim to suddenly grab him, pick him up, and charge the viewport with Skoodge held in front of himself like a battering ram. With a loud smash, the viewport shattered as they impacted it, and the two male Irkens tumbled through the resulting hole and fell to the ground below. Watching this, Tenn paused only long enough to blink in surprise, before shrugging it off and leaping out after them, landing in a crouch next to where Skoodge had slammed into the ground, Zim lying atop him.

"Quick, get inside!" Tenn shouted, as the air started to fill with the sound of angry buzzing. Zim didn't respond, merely jumping up and joining her in running towards the house, Skoodge groggily getting to his feet and running after them.

Once inside, the Irkens shut and locked the door behind them, and then retreated into the living room. Where, rather unsurprisingly, the robots were still sitting on the couch watching the dead television, though they did look away from it when the others entered the room.

"Did you have a good day at skool?" GIR asked cheerfully.

"We weren't at skool, GIR, we were… oh forget it," Zim trailed off, clearly not being in the mood to explain things to the idiotic robot.

"So what do we do now?" Skoodge asked, "I don't think they're going to just let us go."

As if cued by Skoodge's comment, the base was filled with the sound of buzzing and started shaking as multiple impacts rocked the roof and walls.

"Never fear! As always, Zim's incredible genius shall overcome any foe!" Zim crowed, "Computer! Engage defensive measures!"

…

…

…

"Hey, 'incredible genius'. You do remember the power's still out, right?" Tenn asked flatly.

"Oh. Right," Zim said, antennae flattening against his head.

_CRASH_

With several loud crashes, bee stingers suddenly burst through the ceiling, the windows, and several spots along the walls. As they wiggled in an attempt to make the holes bigger, Tenn cursed and ran towards the door leading to her house.

"Through here!" she shouted as she flung the door open and ran down the tunnel. Zim scooped up GIR and Minimoose and ran after her, Skoodge bringing up the rear and shutting the door behind them as he did. Emerging into Tenn's own living room and shutting the door on that side as well, Skoodge and Zim then watched as Tenn opened a panel on the wall and hit a large red button, causing the house's lights to flicker on, albeit on a lower than normal setting.

"Hey, how come you have power?" Zim demanded.

"Because unlike you, I actually thought to install an emergency backup generator in my side of the base," Tenn replied, "Unfortunately, it doesn't do much beside keep the lights on. Except, of course, for a basic defense field around the house."

_THUD_

_ZAP_

Zim and Skoodge jumped as something slammed into the tunnel door behind them and was repelled by a large electrical shock.

"Which should hold against the bees," Tenn continued, "At least long enough for us to figure out our next move."

Zim hummed and rubbed his chin as he walked over to the nearest window. Carefully parting the curtains to peer outside, he scowled as he saw several of the bees hovering outside his damaged house, but smirked as he also saw that they couldn't get too close to Tenn's house without a blue energy field flaring to life and knocking them back. But that smirk quickly slid off his face in confusion as the bees suddenly withdrew back to the hive; even with his egotistic belief that he was unstoppable, he had to acknowledge how unlikely it was they'd just give up, so where were they going?

Then the hive rotated, and a whole row of cannons were suddenly aiming at the house.

"Take cover!" Zim shouted, diving for the floor. Tenn and Skoodge instinctively followed suit, and seconds later the house started shaking under numerous strong impacts.

"The shield's being overwhelmed!" Tenn exclaimed, looking at a screen protruding from her PAK that was displaying the base, "What the hell are they hitting us with?!"

_SMASH_

As if in response to Tenn's question, the defense field suddenly collapsed, and several of the projectiles broke through the walls, slamming into the floor and furniture of Tenn's living room. And as they saw what those projectiles were, the Irkens could only stare in disbelief.

"Are… are those giant meatballs?" Skoodge asked, blinking at the brown spheres, each easily the size of his head.

"Eh, that kinda makes sense, I guess?" Zim commented, "I mean, they use meat for everything, so…"

"No, no, no! I am not about to be taken out by a race that uses processed meat as weaponry!" Tenn shouted, eye noticeably twitching, as several more meatballs burst through the walls, "We need to get out of here and regroup so we can counterattack!"

"Zim does not retreat!" Zim said, only to yelp as a meatball shot by his head and nearly took his antennae off, "But I will agree to a tactical withdrawal!"

Barely pausing to throw on their disguises (Tenn rolling her eyes at seeing that Skoodge's was no better than the one Zim forced on her), the Irkens burst out of the house, the robots following behind them. As they fled down the street, the hive turned and fired after them, peppering the cul-de-sac with meatballs that they kept barely managing to dodge. By the time they reached the main street, however, they realized that the attacks had started falling short, and were now no longer landing anywhere near them.

"I think we're out of range," Skoodge sighed in relief.

"Of the cannons, maybe, but not the crew," Tenn said, as Meat Bees began swarming out of the hive and flying after them.

"GIR! Defend your master from this threat!" Zim ordered his robot, who like the Irkens had grabbed his dog costume in the mad dash out of the house.

"Yes, my liege!" GIR responded with a salute. He jumped up and did a series of vaguely karate-looking moves… and then pulled a bowl of spaghetti out of nowhere, dumped it on the nearest meatball, and began messily eating the whole thing.

While Zim face-palmed, Tenn turned to Minimoose, who was calmly floating nearby.

"You're far more competent and powerful than he is," she said, "Think you can handle this instead?"

"Nyah!" Minimoose replied, floating forward and beginning to glow. His energy quickly latched onto several of the meatballs, ripping them out of the ground and launching them back through the air at the bees. Caught off guard, the bees weren't able to react in time, and started dropping from the sky as the meatballs slammed into them. Within a couple of minutes, most of the bees were down, only a half dozen left in the air.

"Ha! Looks like you're out of ammo, purple thing!" one of the bees crowed… right before a pair of cars slammed into him and the others.

"Nyah!" Minimoose squeaked smugly.

"Excellent work, Minimoose, just as I planned!" Zim said, puffing out his chest.

"Of course you did," Tenn said, not in the mood to even smack him, "But what are we going to do now? That'll only buy us a few minutes, and we still have a whole hive full of angry bee monsters sitting atop our base."

"Too bad all the resources we could use to get rid of them are _in_ the base," Skoodge pointed out. Tenn hummed and rubbed her chin as a thought came to her.

"Well, that's not strictly true," she said after a moment, "After all, there is _one_ other place where we can find advanced Irken tech we can use."

Skoodge blinked in confusion, while Zim's eyes widened in shock.

"No, no, absolutely not!" he yelled, "Zim refuses to sink that low!"

"Do you have better ideas?" Tenn asked, crossing her arms. Zim opened his mouth to respond, only to shut it again as clearly nothing occurred to him, leaving him to look away from her with a scowl.

"Wait, I'm lost. What are we talking about?" Skoodge asked, scratching his head.

"I'll explain on the way. Let's go," Tenn said, taking off down the street. Zim grumbled and reluctantly followed her, grabbing GIR by the collar as he did so and dragging him along, while a still-confused Skoodge and sedate Minimoose took up the rear.

Meanwhile, back aboard the hive ship, the Queen Bee fumed as she looked at all her knocked-out minions lying on the ground and watched the Irkens disappear down the street. Snarling, she turned towards where several of her bridge crew were standing around the consoles, making sure nothing was damaged.

"Have we restored enough power to be fully flight-capable again?" she demanded.

"Yes, Your Majesty," one of the bees, "Reactors are at 58 percent capacity, which is more than sufficient for a sustained flight."

"Good. Prepare for liftoff," she commanded, "We'll hunt those little green pests down and annihilate them. Then we can properly commence with plundering this world's meat. And order the gunners to switch to heavy ammunition; we will show no mercy."

"Aye, Your Majesty!" a slightly scorched Ned replied, "You heard her, lads! Prepare to leave port! Raise the anchors, trim the sails!"

"But we don't have-"

"Shut up, Jerry!"

XXXXXXX

Dib sat on one end of the couch, watching a documentary on The Stuff Network about studies into how much wood woodchucks could actually chuck, while Gaz sat at the other end, focus alternating between the Game Slave in her hands and the remaining pizza from their takeout lunch on the coffee table. Thus, both were caught by surprise when someone suddenly knocked hard on the door.

"Were you expecting a delivery or something?" Dib asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No," Gaz replied, "Go see who it is, I'm almost at a save point."

Shrugging, Dib got up and started walking towards the door. Before he got halfway, however, the door was abruptly knocked clean off its hinges, revealing Zim standing on the front porch, once again using Skoodge as a battering ram.

"Why do you keep doing this?" Tenn asked, curious but not overly concerned.

"Convenience," Zim replied as he nonchalantly dropped Skoodge before turning to the surprised Dib, "Dib-Monkey! Zim most regrettably needs to speak to you!"

"Zim! Tenn! And… uh, who are you?" Dib exclaimed, trailing off in confusion as he looked at Skoodge, who had gotten back to his feet and was rubbing his head.

"I'm Invader Skoodge," Skoodge replied with a frown, "I know we've met a couple of times before, during my previous visits to Earth."

"Oh. Right, sorry, I kinda forgot you exist," Dib admitted sheepishly.

"It's fine. I get that a lot."

"Silence! We're not here to discuss how forgettable Skoodge is!" Zim snapped.

"Oh yeah? Well why are you here?" Dib demanded, "Because if you want a rematch from earlier, I'm ready for you!"

"If you morons are going to fight, do it outside," Gaz ordered, still focused on her game, "Dad just finished having the house cleaned, and I'm not going to be the one explaining things to him if he comes home and finds it wrecked."

"We're not here to fight," Tenn said firmly, shooting a look at Zim to make clear she was speaking to him as well as Dib, "Due to a lack of other options, we need your help."

"Wait, what?" Dib asked, blinking in confusion, "What could you possibly need my help with? And why in the world would I help you?"

"Fool! If you don't help us, you'll be sorry when the bees come for your meat!" Zim exclaimed, pointing a finger dramatically at Dib's face.

"…" Dib could only stare for a moment, before turning to Tenn and Skoodge, "Is that an Irken metaphor or something?"

"No, it's an actual thing," Skoodge replied.

"That's right, we're being chased by pirate-themed space bees that want to steal all your planet's meat," Tenn added with a sigh, "And I cannot _believe_ my life has reached a point where I can say something that bizarre with a straight face."

"And you expect me to believe that?" Dib asked, crossing his arms.

"You dare accuse Zim of lying, worm-baby?" Zim snarled, "Provide us with the aid we need against the bees, or I'll turn your oversized head inside out!"

"My head's not big!" Dib snapped back, "And just try it, you overgrown space bug!"

"Why you little-!"

"Pudding time!" Clembrane suddenly announced, emerging from the kitchen with a bowl of pudding as ever in his clutches, immediately killing the mood of the confrontation. Seeing the Irkens at the door, he cocked his head and smiled, "Ooh, son! I didn't know your little friends were coming over. Do they want pudding too?"

"Uh, I don't think so, 'dad'," Dib said, feeling awkward at the clone's abrupt intrusion into the situation.

"…The hell is this thing supposed to be?" Tenn asked, looking Clembrane up and down while Skoodge just stared.

"Eh, it's just a clone of Dib's parental unit that I made once," Zim explained with a shrug, "And a total failure too — he's completely incapable of making pudding the right way!"

"_That's_ why you consider him a failure?" Tenn asked in disbelief, "Zim, I've seen footage of Professor Membrane, and this thing doesn't look or sound anything like him. What did you do, insert some of his DNA into a fish or something?"

"You know, I've been curious about that myself," Gaz commented, briefly glancing up from the game.

"Who cares?" Dib asked, cutting in to get the conversation back on track, "The point is, I don't know what you're up to, but there's no way I'm going to be tricked into helping you, and nothing's going to change my mind!"

_SMASH_

The house's front window shattered as something burst through it, flying through the air above the heads of the humans and Irkens, and slammed into Clembrane hard enough to carry the clone along with it until they crashed into the wall. Everyone — even Gaz, who actually looked fully away from her game in surprise — turned to face the impact site, and found that Clembrane had been knocked halfway through the wall, plaster and other debris collapsing on him. And splayed against him, apparently stuck to him from the impact…

"A rack of ribs?" Dib asked, blinking at the sight of a plus-sized side of meat pinning Clembrane to the new hole in the wall. He then turned towards the shattered window and glanced outside, and his jaw dropped as he saw the hive ship hovering over the street, cannons aimed at his house.

"Believe us now?" Tenn asked, as she and the other Irkens ducked for cover.

Before Dib could respond, the hive opened fire again. More ribs, steaks, entire turkeys; all this and more rained down on the Membrane house. Much of it simply splattered on impact with the structure or the surrounding yard, but plenty of it broke through the roof and walls, filling the house with piles of meat.

Aboard the hive ship's bridge, the Queen, Ned, and the other bees smirked nastily as they looked down at the damage they had wrought.

"Hold fire!" Ned ordered. As the cannons fell silent, he turned to the Queen, his mandibles clicking excitedly as he said, "There's no way those bilge rats survived that sort of bombardment, Your Majesty."

"Oh, is that right?" the Queen asked dryly, pointing to a console screen depicting a view of the house. It zoomed in, and clearly showed the Irkens emerging unharmed from amongst the meat. Ned's wings buzzed angrily at this.

"Grr, switch ammunition!" he barked, "Give them a taste of the chain-shot!"

While the bees switched ammunition, Dib dug his way out of the small mountain of meat that had accumulated in his living room. Spitting out a chicken leg that had ended up in his mouth, he looked around and saw the Irkens standing nearby, Tenn watching impassively as Skoodge attempted to pry loose a lamp chop that had hit and fused to Zim's head during the barrage, Zim grumbling obscenities as he did so. GIR sat nearby under a floating Minimoose, chewing on a steak he'd apparently pulled from a pile. And Gaz… was still sitting in the same spot on the couch, still focusing on her game and seemingly unperturbed by how her home had just been wrecked and covered in meat.

"Filthy bees, filthy meat, filthy-OW!" Zim shrieked as Skoodge successfully pulled the chop free.

"Maybe now you'll be willing to actually listen and help us?" Tenn asked Dib.

"Only because you made it my problem by coming here," Dib replied with a scowl, "Now, how are we supposed to fight that thing?"

"Well, we need-"

"Incoming!" Skoodge shouted, as the hive's cannons fired again, this time discharging pairs of meatballs connected by links of sausages. The conjoined meatballs spun through the air towards the house, crashing through the already damaged walls and ceiling and wrecking them further, while Dib and the Irkens jumped and dived to try and dodge as best as they could. Tenn, seeing one set heading towards her, slashed through the sausage link with her PAK legs, sending the meatballs scattering away from her and sending the sausages flying everywhere… including right at Gaz, several of the sausages splattering against her face.

Dib froze in mid-step, and Tenn went pale, as they saw this.

"Oh, _blitznak_," Tenn said, backing away quickly, Zim doing likewise as he also saw what had happened. Skoodge, who didn't have their experience with Gaz, could only blink at their reactions, though he shuddered as the room's temperature suddenly dropped.

Gaz, for her part, also seemed to freeze when the sausages hit her face. Then, very slowly, she put her Game Slave down with one hand while the other other grabbed the meat and pulled it away, revealing her face again, which was twisting with rage as the room around her seemed to be plunged into darkness.

"Pork," she said with disgust, as she spat out a bit of one sausage that had gotten into her mouth and clenched the other sausages in her grip so hard they burst, "I _hate_ pork!"

With a snarl, Gaz grabbed the nearest meatball and stomped over to where the front wall of the house had been almost completely knocked down. Glaring up at the hive, she waited until she saw that its cannons were repositioning to fire at her, then threw the meatball. Her aim was true, and it slammed right into the mouth of a cannon that was about to fire.

_BOOM_

With a thunderous clap, the cannon backfired and exploded, the blast tearing a huge hole in the side of the hive. On the bridge, the crew were all bowled over, while the Queen was knocked clean off her throne. Smoke quickly filled the room, while sirens blared from every console.

"What just happened?" the Queen demanded, as she dragged herself back into her throne.

"One of our cannons exploded," Ned replied, coughing and buzzing his wings to try and clear the smoke, "It caused a chain reaction, and-"

"Hey, does anyone else have a sudden feeling of encroaching doom?" Jerry asked, shivering in clear dread, which the rest of the bees suddenly realized that they could feel it too.

Then the smoke cleared to reveal Gaz standing on the rim of the newly-created hole in the side of the ship. She was flanked on both sides by rows of her security dolls, metallic claws aimed at the bees while their mistress gave them the mother of all death glares.

"You. Made me. Taste _pork_," she growled, flames seeming to appear in her eyes, "Prepare to enter a nightmare world!"

With robotic screeches, Gaz's dolls swarmed the bees, Gaz herself following right behind them. Back on the ground, Dib and the Irkens listened as the bees screamed and watched as the damaged ship jerked and shook in the air.

"Wow, she really doesn't like pork, huh?" Skoodge commented.

"Nope, she's despised it ever since that 'pig mouth' thing," Dib replied, watching as several more explosions rocked the hive.

"'Pig Mouth'?" Tenn asked, squinting an eye in confusion.

"Short version, it was this situation where she had a condition that made it so that everything she ate tasted like pork," Dib explained, wincing as he recalled that whole incident, "She hasn't been able to stand the taste ever since, since it reminds her of how she got turned into a media freak over it."

"Oh yes, Zim remembers that," Zim said with a smirk, "You were so desperate to help her that you came to me to beg for help. And instead I just laughed in your pitiful face."

"Of course you remember that part," Dib sighed, before shaking it off and asking, "So what exactly is the plan here? Because I don't know if even Gaz can deal with them all."

"Well, according to one of Zim's rants about you, you have a fully functional Spittle Runner at your disposal," Tenn said, "With our base currently out of commission, that's the most advanced piece of technology on this planet, and our only guaranteed bet to destroy that thing."

"Assuming we can get it to cooperate," Dib muttered, as he led the way out of the house and back to the surprisingly intact garage, where he tapped the Tak Ship's canopy to get it to turn on.

"What do you want no- what is HE doing here?!" the Ship shouted in rage, gesturing to Zim with one extension.

"Look, I don't like it either, but right now we're temporarily teamed up to fight some meat-obsessed pirate space bees," Dib explained, before blinking and turning to Tenn, "Wow, you're right. That _does_ feel weird to actually say."

"Well, that certainly explains all the filthy meat my sensors are detecting," the Ship noted, before pointing to Tenn, "Hey, aren't you the Invader who was assigned to Meekrob? What are you doing on this dump of a planet, and why are you standing here with that moron?"

"My mission failed due to an accident, the Tallest exiled me for it, and now I'm helping Zim conquer Earth as a way to prove myself," Tenn said quickly, not feeling like having to rehash this whole story yet again, "Now, can we focus on using you to destroy these things before they destroy us?"

"Hmm, but if you're all destroyed, I don't have to deal with you anymore," the Ship mused.

"Yeah, but what's to stop them from destroying you just for being in close proximity to us?" Skoodge pointed out.

"…Fair point," the Ship admitted, "Fine, whatever. What do you need?"

"Firepower, and a lot of it, enough to blast that ship of theirs out of the sky," Tenn replied.

"Much as I'd like to do that, I'm afraid my weapon systems aren't operational," the Ship replied, "They haven't worked ever since one of the more recent times this big-headed Earth monkey crashed me, and he hasn't managed to fix them yet."

"Tch, typical pitiful human engineering skills," Zim scoffed. Dib scowled and looked ready to pick a fight, so Tenn stepped in to keep the conversation on track.

"Could you bypass the damage with an emergency PAK interface?" she asked the Ship.

"A what?" Dib asked.

"It's when an Irken ties their PAK directly into a computer mainframe to boost processing power, memory files, or in this case weapons systems," Zim explained. Seeing the surprised expression on Tenn's face, he shrugged, "What? I used to be a scientist, I know how this stuff works."

"Yes, that could definitely work, though it'd be excruciating for the Irken in question," the Ship noted, "Which is why normally I'd happily do it to Zim, but I don't want his faulty PAK causing my hard drive to crash."

"Curse you, ship! You dare insult Zim?!" Zim snapped.

"Yes," the Ship replied bluntly, "Anyway, with him not an option, it'll have to be one of these other two… ah, fat one, thank you for volunteering!"

"Wait, what?" Skoodge said. Turning, he saw that Tenn had taken several large steps backwards to make it look like he had stepped forward.

"Sorry, but better you than me," she said with a shrug. Before Skoodge could respond, several cables shot out of the Tak Ship and forcibly attached to his PAK, lifting him into the air with a yelp.

"This will take a few minutes to properly calibrate," the Ship said, "If it's any comfort, this should only hurt a lot."

"How is that that supposed to be com-GAHAAAA!" Skoodge started to ask, only to start yelling in pain as electricity surged through him, the Ship getting to work on the process.

XXXXXXX

Aboard the hive ship, Gaz stood among the debris and chaos of the now throughly wrecked bridge. Her hair was ruffled, her clothes were slightly torn in a few spots, she was splattered with the bees' ichor blood, and in one hand she was holding the severed stinger she'd torn out of one bee and was now using as a makeshift sword. Looking around, she saw dozens of injured and knocked-out bees across the room, with several of her dolls likewise lying damaged and inert.

"Great. Fixing those is really going to eat into my game budget," she muttered to herself.

"You little wretch!" a bloody Ned snarled as he flew across the room towards her, arching back to stab at her with his stinger. Barely turning to face him, Gaz lifted her stolen stinger to block his. The two quickly fell into a series of strikes and parries, Ned lashing out in a fury while Gaz stayed cool and composed the entire time. Eventually getting tired of this, Gaz shoved Ned back to give herself room, then unleashed a flurry of slashes which didn't immediately appear to have had any effect.

"Ha! Missed me, poppet," Ned sneered… right before his stinger, wings, and all six limbs fell off, all having been cut clean through. Ned, now reduced to an abdomen and a head, promptly fell to the floor and was left blinking up at her; he didn't even have a chance to process this before she kicked him in the face hard enough to send him flying out of the ship.

"Loser," she snorted. She turned back to the interior of the ship, ready to continue her rampage, only for a high-powered stream of some kind of fluid to slam into her, knocking her against a wall and then leaving her stuck there as it suddenly hardened. Blinking in disorientation, she looked down to see what was restraining her.

"Is this barbecue sauce?" she asked incredulously as she took in the red-brown, semi-solidified mass.

"Indeed it is," the Queen said as she approached, a fire extinguisher-like device in her grip, sauce still dripping from the end of its nozzle, "We usually use it as an emergency adherent to patch up damage to the ship, but it seems to be useful for this situation too."

"You know, this is just giving me more of a reason to destroy you," Gaz growled as she flexed against the sauce in an attempt to break free.

"And what makes you think you'll have a chance?" the Queen sneered, rearing back to prepare to stab Gaz with her stinger-

_ZAP_

-only for an energy blast to hit her and send her flying. Arching an eyebrow at that, Gaz turned to the attack's source and found Minimoose floating nearby.

"Nyah!"

"I didn't need the help," Gaz grumbled, annoyed at needing to be rescued.

"Nyah!"

"They're going to _what?_" she asked, "Fine, I'll complain about this some other time. Get me outta here."

"Nyah!" Minimoose complied, discharging a milder blast to shatter enough of the barbecue sauce to allow Gaz to break free of the rest. Getting to her feet, she whistled sharply to catch the attention of her remaining dolls and gave a few quick hand signals; the dolls obeyed, picking up the remains of their damaged comrades and then jumping out of the ship to land safely on the Membranes' lawn. Gaz herself, meanwhile, hopped atop Minimoose and let him carry her down to the ground, where a slightly anxious-looking Dib was waiting for her.

"You alright?" he asked, as she got off of Minimoose.

"Nothing a shower and some mouthwash can't fix," she replied, looking over to where the Irkens were gathered around Tak's Ship. Skoodge looked half-dead where he was being suspended above the Ship, while Tenn had her arms crossed in annoyance and Zim was scowling at them.

"There, my incredible minion has retrieved your terrifying sibling, Dib-Stink," Zim sneered, "Now will you stop trying to delay us blowing up these disgusting bees?!"

"Yeah, do it!" Dib said.

"Preparing to fire!" the Ship announced, Skoodge yelping in fresh pain as more electricity channeled through his PAK. Several plasma cannons popped out along the length of the Ship, which aimed at the hive and started gathering energy for an attack. Onboard the hive, the Queen stumbled to the hole in the side and looked out in time to see this.

"Oh, beeswax," she muttered, right before the cannons fired repeatedly, flinging hundreds of bolts of concentrated plasma at the hive, rapidly tearing through it until they hit the hive's power core.

_BOOM_

With a flash of light, the hive disintegrated in a massive explosion, most of it being disintegrated, and what little wasn't being reduced to hunks of flaming debris that rained down on the street. Dib stared in awe at this, while Gaz remained impassive, Tenn smirked triumphantly, and Zim cackled.

"And that's what you get for daring to attack Zim, fools!" he yelled at the ashes that had started to settle on the area.

"You didn't do anything," Tenn pointed out, "Coming here was _my_ idea!"

"Yes, but you only knew Dib had the ship because I told you about it, therefore I get the credit for any ideas coming from that knowledge!" Zim stated. Tenn stared at him for a moment, before sighing and pinching the space between her eyes.

"I feel your pain, having to deal with such stupidity on a regular basis," the Ship commented.

"Hey!" Dib snapped.

"Look, are you all done here?" Gaz asked, rolling her eyes, "I have better things to do than listen to you all trade insults."

"Yes, fine, we're done," Tenn said, "The hive is destroyed, the bees were presumably all killed with it, no one on our side was hurt…"

At that exact moment, the Ship unplugged itself from the now thoroughly-charred Skoodge and dumped him on the ground. Tenn looked at his moaning form awkwardly for a moment, then shrugged.

"Well, almost no one," she amended, "I'd call this a job done and completed to satisfaction."

"Good, then all of you get off of my property! …What's left of it," Dib said, trailing off into a mutter at that last bit as he glanced at his wrecked house and yard.

"Gladly. You humans disgust Zim more than the meat does!" Zim exclaimed, before stomping away from the garage, Tenn silently following at a more calm pace, while Minimoose levitated Skoodge and brought up the rear. As the group walked past the house, Zim paused only long enough to call out for GIR before continuing to walk away; the robot in question came running out of the house, carrying a small mountain of meat in his arms.

"Bye Big Head! Bye Scary Lady!" GIR called out, waving to Dib and Gaz.

"My head's not big!" Dib yelled back, glaring at the group as they disappeared down the street, before turning to the Tak Ship and asking, "I don't have to worry about you teaming up with Tenn behind my back, do I? You seemed pretty chummy with her for a moment there."

"What, and work with Zim on a regular basis as a side effect?" the Ship sneered, "No thanks, I still have some dignity left. Not much, after all this time stuck with you, but some."

Rolling his eyes at the casual insult, Dib walked back towards the house with Gaz. Reaching the wrecked structure, they looked through one of the holes in the wall and peered inside, seeing the mounds of meat filling the living room… and also piles of pudding, as Clembrane had recovered at some point and was wondering around, coating all the meat with liberal amounts of the chocolate goo.

"…Wanna just blame him for the mess when Dad gets home?" Gaz asked.

"Ethically, I know I should say no, but I just know that Dad will blame me if we try to tell him the truth," Dib said with a sigh.

With that, the siblings went into the house to clean up as best as they could, both determined to put this very strange experience behind them.

XXXXXXX

Returning to their base, the Irkens were relieved to see it fully online and functional again, robotic arms working to repair the damage from the bees' attack. Entering Zim's house, with Minimoose depositing an already mostly-healed Skoodge on the couch, Zim and Tenn looked around and saw that virtually all the interior damage had been repaired already.

"Computer, am I to assume that we are fully operational again?" Zim asked.

"Yes, master," the Computer replied, "Power is restored to near-total levels, and the majority of damage from the attack has been repaired."

"Good. Then with this huge waste of time of a distraction out of the way, we can get back to what we doing beforehand," Tenn said. Seeing the blank looks she got in return, she rolled her eyes and clarified, "I mean the supply exchange, idiots."

"Oh, right. I kinda forgot about that with everything else that happened," Skoodge admitted, wincing as his skin finished healing, "We should probably get that done now that-"

"Not so fast, bottom-feeders!"

"Now what?" Tenn groaned at the sudden intrusion. She and the others turned to face the source of the voice, and were greeted by the sight of Ned, now sporting peg legs on the stubs of his lowermost two limbs, hooks on the upper four, an eyepatch covering the eye Gaz had hit when she'd kicked him, and a metal harpoon in place of his severed stinger.

"Where'd you get all that stuff?" Skoodge asked, arching an antenna.

"Never you mind that!" Ned snarled, "All you should care about is that the fact that I'm about to kill you all to avenge my Queen, and then I'll take all this world's meat for myself!"

The Irkens stared blankly at him for a moment after that declaration, then exchanged looks.

"Well, I've had enough of this nonsense," Tenn said flatly, "Zim, you want to do the honors?"

"Gladly. Computer, engage defensive measures," Zim ordered with a smirk. In response to that command, several mechanical limbs holding a variety of weapons — blasters, buzzsaws, flamethrowers, spikes, taser prongs, and for some reason a toaster — descended from the ceiling to completely surround Ned.

"Er… parlay?" Ned asked nervously.

_Zap_

_Boom_

_Sizzle_

_Szzkkt_

The house was briefly lit up enough to be visible from outside as all the weapons unloaded all at once. When the resulting smoke cleared, Ned was shown to have been burned to a crisp. Frowning, Zim pulled out his squidgyblit and marched over to Ned, jumping up to whack him on the head with it and causing the bee to burst into ash.

"See? All an Invader needs is his squidgyblit!" Zim reiterated his earlier point.

"Yeah, but I still think you guys made a pretty good team during all this, Zim providing the tech and Tenn having the planning skills," Skoodge commented with a shrug, "Just saying."

"Whatever," Tenn said, shaking her head, "Let's just go deal with the supplies."

The Irkens then descended into the depths of the base to organize the exchange of supplies, in the process ignoring both the Computer sweeping up the ashen remains of the pirate space bee and GIR sitting on the couch and helping himself to all his pilfered meat.

All-in-all, a pretty normal end for a day in Zim's base.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

**A/N: And another one done. And aside from the pain of trying to come up with a proper couple of closing paragraphs, this was a fun one to write.**

**You know, the original episode concept had the pirate bees singing sea shanties. However, I'm not creative enough to come up with original lyrics, and using lyrics from actual songs is frowned on. I was going to throw in a **_**Pirates of Penzance**_** reference, though, but that seemed like too much effort to squeeze in.**

**Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this.**

**Please review!**


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